BY: MARY MCCUE BELL
WASHINGTON — Through 26 years as a legislator, U.S. Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer traveled back and forth from work to be with his family in St. Elizabeth.
Luetkemeyer has another agenda for this fall’s election season rather than campaigning: spending time on a small family farm in the Ozark foothills.
His seven grandchildren, aged from 2 to 17, were never old enough to cast a vote while Luetkemeyer was in Congress, but they will learn about his official activities with time.
“I want them to know that grandpa made a difference,” Luetkemeyer said.
The 72-year-old congressman, who usually arrives on Capitol Hill in the early morning during session weeks, said he plans to sleep in a little later and address the general upkeep of his quiet farm, leaving behind the pressures of solving national banking issues and addressing threats posed by the Chinese Communist Party.
He’s stepping away from power, prestige and decades of service on the national stage — and he’s doing it at a time when he was considered a front-runner to be elevated to an even more prominent position in Congress.
Since he was first elected to Congress in 2009, Luetkemeyer has helped pass legislation to preserve community banks and has chaired a powerful financial subcommittee, dealing with issues such as bank regulation.
He is among 45 of the 435 House members who have announced they are not seeking re-election in 2024, according to Ballotpedia.
He’s represented Missourians in a sprawling district that stretches from St. Louis to the Lake of the Ozarks to Boonville. His district’s border includes part of Columbia: practically everything south of Broadway.
Sitting in front of his desk adorned with family photos and mementos in the Rayburn House Office Building this summer, Luetkemeyer told the Missourian that he intends to step out of the political ring completely; he has no lobbying aspirations.
“I’ve been a public servant for the last 26 years. I’ve done my time. I participated and represented folks,” Luetkemeyer said. “So I think it’s time for me to step back and be somebody who’s supportive of somebody else who wants to take that job.”
Luetkemeyer said it’s his belief that he hails from the smallest town of anyone in Congress: St. Elizabeth, located 30 miles south of Jefferson City with a population of 341, according to the town website. While this presented a distinctive set of challenges during his time in Congress, an old-fashioned mix of hard work and determination overcame them.
But before Luetkemeyer nestles into retirement, he has to finish up his committee work.
He serves on the House Financial Services Committee, bringing his prior experience as a bank examiner for the state of Missouri and a loan officer and vice president at the Bank of St. Elizabeth, a family institution founded by his great-grandfather.
The announcement of his retirement in January was somewhat of a surprise, St. Louis Public Radio reported, because Luetkemeyer was seen as a leading candidate to succeed Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-North Carolina, in the next Congress as the top Republican on the committee. Being home with family and retirement trumped that, Luetkemeyer said.
Reuters once called Luetkemeyer “Wall Street’s favorite congressman,” describing him as responsive to bankers’ complaints that excessive regulation was hurting the economy.
McHenry dubbed him “the champion for community banks.” He credits this title to Luetkemeyer’s time in multiple leadership roles in the House Subcommittee on National Security, Illicit Finance and International Financial Institutions.
Ranking subcommittee member U.S. Rep. Joyce Beatty, a Democrat from Ohio, described Luetkemeyer as a “dedicated public servant and scholar in Financial Services.”
“I enjoyed his steadfast leadership as chairman, and it was a pleasure working with him to advance bipartisan legislation and engage in meaningful discussions that have shaped our financial landscape,” Beatty said.
The vice chairwoman of the subcommittee, Rep. Young Kim, R-California, said that as chairman, Luetkemeyer would organize roundtable discussions that served as prep sessions before the committee hearing for members to understand the key issues and witnesses better. This type of leadership was important for Kim and her colleagues to comprehend the intricacy of the topic at hand, she said.
Kim said that when Luetkemeyer gets passionate, “he will always bang the table to really make a point.”
Luetkemeyer, who Kim thinks of as a “national security policy hawk,” is also on the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. In the past year, this committee has examined China’s role in the fentanyl crisis and its cyber threats to U.S. national security.
Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Michigan, the committee chairman, told the Missourian that he appreciated Luetkemeyer’s passion and leadership, adding that he will “serve as an example to others long after his retirement.”
Rep. Roger Williams, R-Texas, chairman of the House Committee on Small Businesses, praised the expertise and experience Luetkemeyer brings as a member of that committee. Williams, who called Luetkemeyer one of his best friends in Congress, said his committees will be missing a “real business owner” and banker who “represented the people.”
The Center for Effective Lawmaking, a partnership between the University of Virginia and Vanderbilt University that ranks policymakers, gave Luetkemeyer an overall rating for the last session of Congress that shows he is “exceeding expectations,” Craig Volden, the group’s co-director, said. The organization gave Luetkemeyer high marks in the area of banking and commerce that indicate he is “producing legislation and moving it forward at the rates equivalent of if he were actually 10 members of Congress.”
Some of the legislation Luetkemeyer was involved in included the Stop Fentanyl Money Laundering Act of 2023 to combat fentanyl trafficking; the Water Resources Development Act of 2022 concerning water resources for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) Extension Act of 2021 to aid small businesses in response to COVID-19; the Housing Opportunity Through Modernization Act of 2016, which was the first rule bill to pass unanimously in both the House and Senate in 25 years, according to his office; and the William Shemin Jewish World War I Veterans Act to review awarding the Medal of Honor to Jewish-American World War I veterans.
When Congress is in session, Luetkemeyer said that he travels back and forth each week from the Capitol to St. Elizabeth to be with his family and stay “grounded” with his constituents. He said he enjoys the work his office does helping constituents navigate the federal bureaucracy; if he can go home at night knowing that he helped a constituent that day, “that’s a good feeling.”
“I always tell people I’m just a liaison between you and your government,” Luetkemeyer said. “It’s not my government; it’s your government.”
Garrett Hawkins, president of the Missouri Farm Bureau, an organization that has previously endorsed Luetkemeyer, said that he appreciates how the congressman is “not always looking to make the news.” He praised Luetkemeyer’s work on issues that affect farmers, small businesses and rural communities, such as advocating for flood control and navigation on the rivers.
Learning of the congressman’s departure was a “bittersweet feeling,” Hawkins said.
“I’m hoping that Blaine (and) his family get a chance to catch their breath,” Hawkins said. “He really has served with distinction. He’s worked hard, and he certainly deserves this retirement.”
While in office, Luetkemeyer said he often missed barbecues and birthdays with friends and family due to his commitments in Washington, D.C. Now, he’s eagerly anticipating the chance to enjoy uninterrupted family dinners.
“(Family) is a big part of my life, and I want to make it an even bigger part of it,” Luetkemeyer said.
In the race to fill his seat in Congress, Luetkemeyer had endorsed Kurt Schaefer, a lobbyist and former two-term state senator from Columbia. But Schaefer was defeated in the Aug. 6 Republican primary by former state Sen. Bob Onder of Lake St. Louis, who was endorsed by former President Donald Trump.
Bethany Mann, whom Luetkemeyer defeated in 2022, advanced from the Democratic primary as did Jordan Rowden of the Libertarian Party.
The general election is Nov. 5, when Luetkemeyer plans to keep up with the election stats while back home in St. Elizabeth after over two and a half decades as a public servant.
This story originally appeared in the Columbia Missourian. It can be republished in print or online.