Rep. Jim McDermott, a Democrat representing the Seattle area, will retire this year after 14 terms in office.
McDermott, 76, made the announcement on Monday in Seattle.
A anti-war liberal and a former psychiatrist, McDermott was a leading voice in the Democratic effort to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan back in 2007 and 2008. He has also been one of the most liberal voices on healthcare during his time in office.
“Congressman James McDermott has been a tenacious champion of hard-working Americans in Washington and across the United States,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said in a statement. “Throughout all of his four decades of distinguished public service, Jim has shown the strength of his progressive values and the quality of his leadership in expanding opportunity for all Americans.”
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, sued McDermott for leaking to the New York Times an illegally taped, 1996 phone call involving Boehner, then-Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., and other Republicans who were discussing House ethics charges against Gingrich. McDermott, who at the time was serving on the bipartisan House ethics committee, had accepted the tape from a Florida couple who overheard the conversation on a scanner.
McDermott tried to claim First Amendment protection from the lawsuit, but in 2008, a judge found him liable for $1 million in legal fees.
McDermott spent much of his quarter-century in Congress working on healthcare issues and pushing for a single-payer system much like European countries provide to citizens, an approach deemed too extreme for most within his party.
As top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee’s health subcommittee, McDermott has been a vocal supporter of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, while still criticizing it occasionally for continuing to rely on the private insurance system instead of turning things over to the government.
“I leave Congress with no regrets,” McDermott said at a press conference announcing his decision.
“The support and the trust symbolized by voters’ judgments is the highest honor they could have bestowed upon me. I retire from the House forever humbled and grateful to my constituents, for their unwavering embrace,” he added.
Paige Winfield Cunningham contributed
