Democrats’ reliance on seniority clashes with enthusiasm for fresh faces

Rep. Diana DeGette, Democrat from Colorado, is done with waiting.

For “probably” 12 years, she says, she’s aspired to one of the top three jobs in the Democratic leadership. But these positions have been occupied by the same three people – all of them now in their late 70s – for more than a decade.

Now that Democrats have won the majority in the House, Congresswoman DeGette is making her move – challenging a powerful member of the troika for the No. 3 slot, the “whip,” or chief vote counter. DeGette has been on her party’s whip team since she arrived in Congress more than 20 years ago, and before that when she was in the Colorado legislature.

“What I love to do is whip,” she tells a clutch of reporters, describing the satisfaction of building coalitions and rounding up