The next Senate GOP leader won’t be super-rich. That’s a good thing

One of the two Johns — John Cornyn and John Thune — is in all likelihood going to be the next leader of the Senate. One may potentially, based on the very favorable map for Republicans this cycle, may be the next majority leader. It’s a massive trade in power, away from the long-tenured Mitch McConnell and his diaspora of consultants and groups, and into the new hands of different Senate staffers and teams. But one thing that Cornyn and Thune represent is not just a generational shift, but a shift in the nature of the leadership and what they represent.

Cornyn and Thune were both recruited in 2004 by Karl Rove as part of the effort by George W. Bush to take the Senate. Thune was a longtime political aide and then South Dakota’s representative; Cornyn was a Texas judge, a state Supreme Court justice and then became the first elected Republican attorney general since Reconstruction.

Both men, to put it lightly, are the opposite of many politicians who end up in leadership roles. They are longtime public servants who never had a big payday from Big Law or a lobbying firm. Most leaders of either the House or the Senate have, in recent years, occupied the top tier of net worth. But both Cornyn and Thune rank below the median senator in net worth — they are far closer to the net worth of the upper middle class than the wealthier senators and representatives.

There’s nothing particularly admirable about this, of course. It’s not that all rich people are out of touch. But it does represent a shift that is welcome at a time when Republicans are increasingly a party of the middle and working class. The corruption of the leadership class in Washington is an ever-present problem, driving distrust in the representative institutions and a belief that every piece of legislation is being manipulated on behalf of the investments of a class of elected insider traders. 

Putting people in leadership roles who do not suffer from that distrust is significant and helpful. In an age of increased transparency, it helps to have leaders who don’t automatically end up in an assumed category of corruption — especially in the wake of Joe Biden’s money for the Big Guy.