Senator Rockefeller Is Retiring After Five Terms

[WestVirginiaRebel]

New York Times:

Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, the scion of the Rockefeller family who established himself as a liberal voice in Congress, said on Friday that he would retire in 2014 at the completion of his fifth term in the Senate.

“As I approach 50 years of public service in West Virginia, I’ve decided that 2014 will be the right moment for me to find new ways to fight for the causes I believe in and to spend more time with my incredible family,” Mr. Rockefeller said in a statement issued by his office.

The decision was not a surprise. In June, Mr. Rockefeller took to the Senate floor to oppose Republican efforts to block a regulation on mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants, declaring, “The coal industry today would rather attack false enemies and deny real problems than find solutions.” The speech was greeted with shock in coal-dependent West Virginia and led immediately to speculation that he would not seek a sixth term in 2014.

Mr. Rockefeller’s retirement could create an opening for Republicans in a state that is increasingly tilting from its once-solid Democratic roots. President Obama won less than 36 percent of the vote there in November after Republicans waged a relentless campaign against what they called the president’s “war on coal.” Republicans persuaded their preferred challenger, seven-term Representative Shelley Moore Capito, to enter the Senate campaign in November after she had declined several previous Senate bids.

 

Mr. Rockefeller, the great-grandson of the oil tycoon, was always an unlikely representative of his hardscrabble state. He served as a VISTA volunteer in 1964, taking up President John F. Kennedy’s call for service, then went on to be elected to the state’s House of Delegates and eventually its governorship.

In the Senate, he made his mark as a chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and on domestic policy as a champion of President Bill Clinton’s failed effort to enact near-universal health insurance coverage, then Mr. Obama’s successful effort nearly two decades later.

As a voice on intelligence matters, he initially supported the invasion of Iraq but became a dogged critic of the war effort and what he came to see as the false pretenses and trumped-up intelligence that took the country to war.

His voting record and recent tilt against coal had made re-election a tough fight. He is also 75 years old. With Democratic voter registration still outnumbering Republicans two-to-one in the state, Democrats believe they can keep the seat — and could possibly have an easier time with a lesser known candidate unencumbered by his connections to Mr. Obama.

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Will West Virginia finally send a Republican to Washington?