Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the current president pro tempore of the Senate and a prominent Democratic leader, has announced that he will retire in 2022, …
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the current president pro tempore of the Senate and a prominent Democratic leader, has announced that he will retire in 2022, joining a growing list of Democratic retirees in the thinly-held House and Senate. Leahy is currently the Senate’s most senior member, having first been elected in 1974 as a so-called “Watergate Baby” following the revelations surrounding the Watergate scandal under President Richard Nixon. The revelations set off a chain of Republican losses in the 1974 midterms, allowing Leahy to begin his 48-year term in office. Announcing his retirement in a speech on the floor of the Vermont State House, Leahy reflected on his original impetus to join the U.S. Senate. “What propelled me was a belief that I understood the needs and values of Vermont and thought it was time for a new generation to address them,” Leahy said. Leahy also said that Edmund Burke, a Dublin-born Whig who served in the English Parliament through much of the 18th century, acted as a “North Star” for him during his time in Congress. “[Burke] said, ‘Your representative owes you not his industry only, but his judgment,’” Leahy commented. “Burke also said that a representative ‘ought not sacrifice to you’ his ‘conscience.’” Since the beginning of his career, Leahy has sometimes broken with the wishes of his constituents, following Burke’s advice.
