Rep. Young, longest-serving GOP member, to retire

On Politics

Catalina Camia, USA TODAY 1:58 p.m. EDT October 9, 2013


Rep. C.W. Bill Young, pictured here in 2006, is chairman of the appropriations committee that funds Pentagon programs.(Photo: Lauren Victoria Burke, AP)

Florida Congressman C.W. Bill Young, the longest-serving House Republican, has decided to retire after 22 terms in office.

Young, 82 and first elected in 1970, told the Tampa Bay Times in an interview that he realized "it's my time" and will leave after the 2014 elections. He's been hospitalized at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center since late last week because of a back injury.

Democrats had already been targeting Young, chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, for defeat. President Obama narrowly won Florida's 13th Congressional District in the 2012 election. The battle for the district — encompassing Tampa Bay, the St. Petersburg suburbs and Clearwater — will become a closely watched race in 2014 with Young not seeking re-election.

Young resumed control of the appropriations panel, which holds broad sway over Pentagon spending, when Republicans won back the House majority in the 2010 elections. Young was chairman of the full Appropriations Committee from 1999-2005. The Florida lawmaker was passed over by then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich after the GOP gained power in the 1994 elections because he had worked too closely with Democrats.

In his Tampa Bay Times interview, Young made reference to the sharp partisanship that has pervaded the House in recent years. "I'm a little disappointed. It seems there's too much politics," he is quoted as saying. "It's a different Congress."

http://www.usatoday.com/story/onpolitics/2013/10/09/bill-young-retire-congress-florida/2952243/