Americas

Americas

Long-term Democrat announces retirement from U.S. House

02 March 2012 23:17 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. U.S. House Representative Norm Dicks, an 18-term Democrat of Washington, announced Friday that he will not seek re-election this fall, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

"I am announcing today my intention to complete my service in the House of Representatives at the end of the current session but not to be a candidate for re-election to the 113th Congress," his office said in a statement.

Dicks was first elected to the House in 1976 and is the ranking Democratic member of the Appropriations Committee and the ranking Democrat on the defense appropriations subcommittee.

The congressman called for bipartisanship in Washington in dealing with the challenges the nation is facing.

"I have always believed that we can achieve greater results if we leave politics aside when the election season and the floor debates are over," he said.

The announcement came three days after Senator Olympia Snowe, a Republican moderate of Maine, announced her decision to retire, citing partisanship in Washington.

"What I have had to consider is how productive an additional term would be," she said. "Unfortunately, I do not realistically expect the partisanship of recent years in the Senate to change over the short term."