Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), the longest-serving Democrat in the Senate, announced Monday that he will retire at the end of his term next year.
Leahy, 81, who was first elected in 1974, would have been up for reelection to a ninth term in 2022.
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“It’s time to put down the gavel. It is time to pass the torch to the next Vermonter to carry on this work for our great state. It’s time to come home,” Leahy said at a news conference Monday at the Vermont State House in Montpelier from the same room where he announced his first Senate candidacy.
During his news conference, Leahy outlined what he considered to be some of the highlights of his career, including making school lunches available to lower-income children, reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act and “fiercely” advocating for civil liberties. He said that he was proud of his long service and that he had worked to deliver the “good judgment and hard work” that Vermonters expect.
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“I know my time in the Senate has made a difference for Vermonters, and I hope often well beyond,” Leahy said. When he finished speaking, he embraced his wife, Marcelle, as they received rousing, sustained applause.
Leahy is chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee and president pro tempore of the Senate, making him third in the line of succession to the presidency.
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Vermont, where President Biden won with 66 percent of the vote last year, has not been represented in the U.S. Senate by a Republican since 2001. The state’s current junior senator is Bernie Sanders, 80, a self-described democratic socialist who caucuses with the Democrats.
“He leaves a unique legacy that will be impossible to match,” Sanders said of Leahy Monday.
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But Phil Scott, the state’s governor since 2017, has demonstrated that a Republican can still prevail in a statewide race in Vermont. He was last reelected last year with nearly 69 percent of the vote.
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Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), the state’s only congressman, is viewed as Leahy’s most likely successor, and on Monday Leahy praised him as “remarkable.” Welch is 74.
After Leahy’s announcement, Sen. Gary Peters (Mich.), chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, vowed to keep the seat in the Democratic column.
“Senator Leahy is a lion of the Senate — he reflects the very best values of the institution and through his service he has shaped the direction of our country for the better in countless ways,” Peters said. “Vermont is a blue state that has not elected a Republican to statewide federal office in more than 20 years, and Democrats look forward to winning this Senate seat in 2022.”
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Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) also said he was “confident” Democrats could retain the seat and joked there was only one thing he and Leahy could never agree on: whether New York or Vermont had the best maple syrup.
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“Very few in the history of the United States Senate can match the record of Patrick Leahy,” Schumer said. “He has been a guardian of Vermont and more rural states in the Senate, and has an unmatched fidelity to the Constitution and rule of law.”
Leahy became the sixth senator — and first Democrat — to announce that he would retire next year rather than seek reelection. Others leaving the chamber include Sens. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), Richard Burr (R-N.C.), Rob Portman (R-Ohio), Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.) and Patrick J. Toomey (R- Pa.).
Among octogenarians up for reelection, one has announced he is running again: Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), age 88. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), 88, who was just reelected to a fifth term in 2018, said Monday she had served with Leahy for almost 30 years on the Senate Judiciary and Appropriations committees, “long enough to be witness to his integrity and strength of purpose.”
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Shelby, 87, who is vice chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, thanked Leahy for his friendship and said that he had “served Vermont well and with honor.”
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Congressional career aside, Leahy is also an ardent Batman fan who has made cameos in five Batman movies, arguing that “Doing the right thing is more for others than yourself” is a lesson Washington could learn from Bruce Wayne.
Leahy has repeatedly eschewed retirement, telling The Washington Post in 2017 that he had a birthday ritual of going scuba diving, swimming down to the depth of his new age, doing an underwater somersault, then swimming back to the surface.
“If I reach the point that I can’t go scuba diving and do my somersaults, that will be one clear indication (to retire),” Leahy said then.
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Leahy was briefly hospitalized in January after presiding over the opening of the second impeachment trial of former president Donald Trump, causing a scare among Democrats who hold a razor-thin majority in the Senate.
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Still, Politico reported in May that Leahy was considering running for a ninth term and that he and his wife usually decide by the December before the election year.
“We go snowshoeing and just talk about it,” Leahy told Politico then. “Because the mistake I’ve seen since I’ve been here are people who, almost the day they come in here are, ‘oh god I’ve got to think about reelection.’ So then they’re afraid to vote for this or that.”
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