By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt says he decided 26 years in Congress was enough, that it was time to retire.
Blunt, in an interview with KFEQ/St. Joseph Post, says he didn’t have any concerns about winning re-election when he began contemplating retiring from public service.
“Well, I will have been in the Congress 26 years at the end of this term. That’s one thing to think about,” Blunt tells us. “Another is I think it’s going to be a particularly good year for Republicans. I think it would have been a good year for me, but I also think it will be a good year to create the likelihood that I’ll be replaced by somebody in general agreement with my view of the government.”
Blunt claims Democrats in Washington are overreaching, pushing a very liberal agenda even though the elections in November shrunk their margins in Congress. Blunt asserts the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief and stimulus bill actually carries long-sought Democratic giveaways. He says the infrastructure bill being pushed by President Joe Biden is weighed down by a left-leaning environmental package and he accuses Democrats of attempting to federalize elections.
The decision by Blunt puts many political wheels in motion, never more evident than the announcement by former Gov. Eric Greitens that he hopes to make a political comeback by winning the Republican nomination of replace Blunt. Greitens left the governor’s office in disgrace after a sex scandal surfaced in 2018.
Missouri might lean Republican, but an open Senate seat will prompt some prominent Missouri Democrats to consider a run. The state has had a race for an open Senate seat only twice in the past 30 years.
Blunt says he has no successor in mind, but adds there are many young Republican statewide officeholders who would make good candidates and there might be some Republicans in the private sector who would consider entering the race.
Blunt calls his decision personal, shared with few outside his family. It had nothing to do with his re-election chances, he insists, but everything to do with his age.
“This is not about not getting elected again,” Blunt says. “It was really very much about do I want to spend my 70s in the Senate? And I decided that was not what I wanted to do in the 70s.”
Blunt is 71.
Some have speculated that Blunt, more of a traditional Republican accustomed to brokering deals in Congress as a member of the leadership in both the House and Senate, might have grown tired of the increasingly bitter political environment in Washington; perhaps even worn down by four years of dealing with President Donald Trump.
Blunt says the last four turbulent years with Trump as president had nothing to do with his decision.
“President Trump, I didn’t always agree with the way he got things done, but more often than not I was enthusiastically in agreement with what was getting done,” according to Blunt.
Blunt says he plans to focus on health care research, placing mental health care on the same level as health care, and legislation to create jobs in his final two years in the Senate.