GOP’s Doc Hastings to retire from Congress



By ALEX ISENSTADT | 2/13/14 12:44 PM EST Updated: 2/13/14 1:46 PM EST

Republican Rep. Doc Hastings of Washington state will not seek reelection this year, he announced Thursday. The GOP is likely to retain his seat, however, as it seeks to defend its 17-seat House majority.

Hastings, the chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, was first elected to the chamber in 1994 as part of the Newt Gingrich-led “Republican Revolution.”

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“Last Friday, I celebrated my 73rd birthday and while I have the ability and seniority to continue serving Central Washington, it is time for the voters to choose a new person with new energy to represent them in the people’s House,” Hastings said in a statement.

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Republicans will be heavily favored to retain Hastings’s 4th District seat, which GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney carried in 2012 with nearly 60 percent of the vote. The district encompasses a swath of the central part of the state.

Hastings’s political career stretches back to the late 1970s, when he was elected to the state House of Representatives. He waged his first campaign for Congress in 1992 but fell short. He eventually won in 1994, defeating Democrat Jay Inslee, who now serves as governor.

Hastings, an ally of House Speaker John Boehner, is the second committee chairman in recent weeks to announce his departure from the House.

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Last month, California Rep. Buck McKeon, the House Armed Services Committee chairman, said he wouldn’t be running for reelection. Last year, Republican Jo Bonner, the chairman of the House Ethics Committee, resigned to take a job with the University of Alabama system.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/0...nt-103493.html