Democratic California Rep. Jackie Speier said Tuesday she will not seek reelection in 2022, the latest member to retire ahead of midterm elections where Republicans are trying to take back the House majority.
Speier released a video on Tuesday announcing her retirement from office after 12 years of service in the House.
The California Democrat recounted “lying on an airstrip in the jungles of Guyana with five bullet holes” in her body after she and her 1978 congressional fact-finding delegation were shot by People’s Temple members in Guyana the same day as the Jonestown Massacre and how she pledged to go into public service should she survive.
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“I lived, and I served,” Speier said. “It has been a remarkable journey that has surpassed my wildest dreams.”
Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., attends a news conference outside the Capitol to announce the bipartisan I Am Vanessa Guillén Act, on Wednesday, September 16, 2020, named after Army Spc. Vanessa Guillén, who was murdered while stationed at Fort Hood in Texas. (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
(Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Speier announced that she “would not be a candidate for Congress” in the upcoming 2022 election cycle, saying it was “time” for her to “come home” and “be more than a weekend wife, mother and friend.”
The California Democrat said her tenure in public service for her community “has been an extraordinary honor” and that she was “deeply touched” by her community’s support.
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Speier vowed to do her “level best” for her remaining year in office and urged her constituents to “protect our precious democracy,” calling it “fragile and vulnerable.”
The retirement comes as another blow to the Democrats’ already razor-thin majority as they head into a predicted red wave.
