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Subscribe to RSSAfter 40 years in Congress, Democratic Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa has announced he will not seek re-election in 2014. NBC's Kelly O'Donnell reports.
U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin said Saturday he will not seek a sixth term in 2014, a decision that frees a new generation of Iowa Democrats to seek higher office and eases some of the burden Republicans face in retaking the Senate.
Harkin, chairman of an influential Senate committee, announced his decision during an interview with The Associated Press, and said the move could surprise some.
But the 73-year-old cited his age — he would be 81 at the end of a sixth term — as a factor in the decision, saying it was time to pass the torch he has held for nearly 30 years.
"I just think it's time for me to step aside," Harkin told the AP.
Harkin, first elected in 1984, ranks 7th in seniority, and 4th among majority Democrats. He is chairman of the health, education, labor and pensions committee, and chairman of the largest appropriations subcommittee.
He has long aligned with the Senate's more liberal members, and his signature legislative accomplishment is the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act. He also served as a key salesman of President Barack Obama's 2010 health care bill to the wary left.
With the retirements of Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Georgia, the Senate becomes increasingly "fresh," says CNBC's John Harwood, and eager to shake things up.
"I'm not saying that giving this up and walking away is easy. It's very tough," Harkin said at his rural Iowa home south of Des Moines. "But I'm not quitting today. I'm not passing the torch sitting down."
Harkin's news defied outward signals. He has $2.7 million in his campaign war chest, second most among members nearing the end of their terms, and was planning a gala fundraiser in Washington, D.C., next month featuring pop star Lady Gaga.
The news creates a rare open Senate seat Iowa. Harkin, Iowa's junior senator, is outranked by Sen. Charles Grassley, who has held the state's other seat since 1980.
Attention will turn immediately to U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley, a fourth-term Democrat from Waterloo. Braley, who was traveling in Iowa Saturday, did not immediately respond to e-mail and telephone requests to his staff by the AP.
Harkin held open the possibility of endorsing a Democrat before the party's primary if the candidate fit the profile of "someone who is progressive, who is a pragmatic progressive."
Although no Republicans have stepped forward, Harkin's news gives the GOP's private huddles new life.
"There are lots of conversations, but it's very early still," said Nick Ryan, an Iowa Republican campaign fundraiser.
U.S. Rep. Tom Latham of Clive is a seasoned Republican congressman, a veteran appropriations committee member and a robust fundraiser who has survived challenges to win 10 consecutive terms. Aides to Latham declined to comment beyond issuing a statement saying the congressman "respects Sen. Harkin's decision (and) looks forward to continuing to work with him."
But with opening a door in Iowa, Harkin has created a potential headache for his party nationally.
Democrats likely would have had the edge in 2014 with the seat, considering Harkin's fundraising prowess and healthy approval. A poll by the Des Moines Register taken last fall showed a majority of Iowans approved of his job performance.
Democrats hold a 55-45 advantage in the Senate, requiring Republicans to gain six seats to win back the chamber. But Democrats have more seats to defend in 2014_20 compared to only 13 for Republicans.
And the president's party historically loses seats in the midterm elections after his re-election. Obama, a Democrat, was re-elected last year.
Democrats will be scrambling to hold onto the seat in GOP-leaning West Virginia, where five-term Democratic Sen. Jay Rockefeller recently announced he would not seek re-election. Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito is running for the Senate seat.
Democratic incumbents also face tough re-election races in Arkansas, Louisiana, Montana, North Carolina and Alaska — all states carried by Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in November's presidential election.
Since the election, Harkin has stepped up his role as one of the Senate's leading liberal populists.
He was a vocal opponent late last year of President Barack Obama's concession to lift the income threshold for higher taxes to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff. Harkin instead supported raising taxes on all earners making more than $250,000 a year.
He also endorsed Obama's call for banning assault rifles and larger ammunition magazines in the wake of the Connecticut school shooting last month
Despite Harkin's strong political position, he has faced questions about his and his wife Ruth's role in developing a namesake policy institute at Iowa State University, Harkin's alma mater.
The Harkins and their supporters have been pushing for the institute to house papers highlighting his signature achievements, including the ADA and shaping farm policy as the former chairman of the agriculture committee.
In one long-running dispute, they've pressed ISU's president to rescind rules restricting the institute's ability to research agriculture, which Harkin derided as a violation of academic freedom. And Harkin has evaded questions about his role in fundraising for the institute after disclosure reports showed some of its largest donors are firms that have benefited from his policies.
Harkin dismissed that those questions had any bearing on his decision.
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Harkin was the one peddling Obamacare to the Democrats who were smart enough to not support it. ....He knows the damage he is responsible for.....he is leaving in shame!
It's about time. We need some young blood to help represent newer, progressive legislation, like compassionate marijuana use. There's a long list of new businesses that could truly 'grow' from legalizing - even if only medically. For Iowa being such an historically conservative state, I was blown away that gay marriage was legalized here before marijuana! Well, let's FREE THE WEED. The laws are antiquated and there are too many non-violent offenders in our prisons that are clogging the system and they need to have their lives given back too. Records EXPUNGED 100% - except obviously where there was violence!
You are ignorant and it's thinking like yours that the politicians are all falsely believing still, 75 year old REEFER MADNESS propaganda. Wait until the day you have cancer tearing at you and you can't / won't eat because of the pain and you're withering away - in pain - yet here is an organic plant that increases appetite, decreases pain - also works wonders in people with bi-polar disorder. Probably would have a huge, positive effect on kids with ADHD too! (not to smoke - but take in edible form) Not to mention the benefits of the byproduct (HEMP FIBERS) for paper, clothing, construction materials. Of course the lumber industry - who love raping old growth forests would bitch - as would the cotton lobbies. No...we shouldn't have ANYTHING like that.
The 'War on Drugs' is another imbecilic Conservative idea that has obviously, resoundingly, and very expensively failed, but is being kept alive by the thieving Republican bastards who are making fortunes off of our booming system of 'prisons-for-profit'.
In a move so disgustingly venal, so nakedly greedy, that even dictatorships like Belarus, Kazakhstan, Hungary and (formerly) a number of Latin American states never even considered it, the United States is turning the administration of its jails and prisons to for-profit, privately held corporations.
Republicans are people who demand that their fellow citizens should be locked up, sometimes for decades, for growing, distributing, or enjoying a plant, which grows wild almost everywhere in the world (and which was created by that very same Almighty God from Whom so many Republicans claim to get their marching orders); but who are horrified at the very notion of arrest, trial, imprisonment or reparations for the wealthy white-collar arch-criminals who wrecked the economy in 2008, ruined thousands of American companies, and cost tens of millions of Americans their jobs and/or their retirements!
Smoke marijuana, you're a bad person. Steal millions, you're a successful capitalist. Got it. Ess vdb, you're on the crest of History's tide; your cause will triumph, as it's doing already in my beloved Evergreen State. The destruction of Capitalism, and its replacement with a 'sane and humane' system of socioeconomic governance is likely to take a bit longer... so long as there are the easily-deluded hordes who earnestly believe that the millions are going to start shwering down on them any day now!
@Fox...wait...so let me get this straight.....weed is illegal and many liberals still use it. Yet, these same liberals believe that making certain guns illegal will prevent people from using them???? ...odd perspective.
I hope Tom realizes how far he helped push the country in the wrong direction and seeing the damage done to the economy and our freedoms wants to leave before he becomes part of what fractures our country !
harkins needs to go so the next crook (repub or dem)gets to walk down the corporate halls of the senate,you can only get so much tainted money in one mattress,so it was time to roll without being indicted by anyone.
Tom Harkin was a great Senator -- a man of the people and for the people. His support for the Americans with Disabilities Act was, and continues to be, a sign of his importance as a Statesman. We'll be sorry to see you go, Senator. I wish my Senators were as wise as you -- they both voted against the international extension of the principles of the ADA -- WITH BOB DOLE THERE ON THE FLOOR, IN A WHEELCHAIR -- because of some conspiratorial nonsense about one-world government. I've read through the comments on this article ABOUT TOM HARKIN -- and I see there the same right-wing stupidity I've witnessed elsewhere. Watching that little pipsqueak Rand Paul giving Hillary Clinton a hard time in the Senate hearing last week made me both angry and then I realized how pitiful the GOP has become. His statement that if he were President, he would have relieved her of her post . . . well, folks, that about says it all. Rand Paul has about as much chance of becoming President as the Man in the Moon. What an idiot!
ray...the 16 open handicapped spots at your local Home Depot thank you. .....16!!!!!!
4 terms too long, and that goes for both parties.
Maybe his seat can be filled by a republican, independent or libertarian.
Every last one of them, both dems and repubs, should do the same and leave politics, and we that keep sending the same morons back there to simply keep spending and taxing us as if there is no end in sight ... should be ashamed of ourselves. I'm old and can't believe what we have allowed to happen to the America we once had.
Good luck on the retirement Tom!!! YOU are ONE that will be sorely missed! Grassly, on the other hand, should have been gone for decades now, but is still there causing grief to his fellow Iowans! Tom, please take Chuckie boy with you, when you go!!!
We absolutely must have term limits set, and starting right now! No more Gerrymandering, no more tampering with districts! And most importantly, NO more VOTE TAMPERING from the TP/GOP!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thank gone this moron is finally retiring......a lifelong politician that has never held a job in the private sector?? .....and we wonder why he was behind such idiotic and out-of-touch legislation??
...jeez....I swear i said "thank God".....must be some liberal spell-checker kicking in?
SOME Iowans are pretty stupid, the demonrat ones! anyway! The big city ones are all union.
3 dogs were walking by a meat market. The Dr's dog said lets go in and buy some meat, the lawyers dog said lets talk the guy out of it, and the farmers dog said lets cry and whine and he will give it to us.
The opposite of a "bleeding heart liberal" would be, ... what?; a "heartless conservative".
I would love to see a drastic change in DC politics.
Scrap the EC (popular vote wins).
Set a flat income tax with no deductions or credits (personal & corporate).
Stop all funding to foreign countries and being the worlds policeman.
Federal employees to be covered through SS and Medicare (not private) and salaries paid only while in office.
Bills to be presented for 1 specific item only (no bundling or pork additions).
Term limits by Constitutional amendment - 1 term of 6 years for President, House and Senate PERIOD.
Stagger the election dates - 2014 for House, 2016 for President and 2018 for Senate.
In this way new faces and ideas are presented every 2 years.
Officials can then reset their agendas on working FOR the people and not getting re-elected.