“It’s time for me to come home,” said Speier in a Twitter video announcing her withdrawal.
Speier, who has been a member of Congress since 2008, mentioned the 1978 assassination of Rep. Leo Ryan (D-Calif.) by followers of cult leader Jim Jones shortly before the notorious mass murder-suicide of Jones’ followers. Speier, then a Ryan staffer, was shot five times but survived.
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“Forty-three years ago this week, I was lying on an airstrip in the jungles of Guyana with five bullet holes in my body,” Speier said. “I vowed that if I survived, I would dedicate my life to public service.”
“It has been a remarkable journey that has surpassed my wildest dreams,” she added. “Today, I’m announcing that I will not be a candidate for reelection to Congress in 2022.”
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The 71-year-old Speier, who represents a reliable Democratic seat in the San Francisco Bay area, said it was time for her to “be more than a weekend wife, mother, and friend.”
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The announcement by Speier appears one day after Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the longest-serving member of the upper chamber, announced he would not seek a ninth term next year.
During her time in Congress, Speier served on some of the most influential House committees, including the Intelligence, Oversight, and Armed Services panels. At the outset of the #In The MeToo movement, she shared her own story of being sexually harassed by an office chief of staff as a young congressional aide.
“I know what it’s like to lie in bed at night, wondering if I was the one who had done something wrong,” she said in 2017, encouraging other women who worked at the Capitol and who had been subjected to harassment to come forward. “I know what it’s like years later to remember that rush of humiliation and anger.”
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Her work supported the passage of the Congressional Accountability Act Reform Act, which went into effect in 2019 and expanded protections for congressional aides who have been subject to harassment.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who also represents the Bay Area, praised Speier in a statement, calling her “a force in the fight to combat sexual assault and harassment in all places.”
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“Her legislative success, including to bring the Me Too movement to Congress,” Pelosi said, “has helped defend the dignity and rights of so many.”
Speier is the ninth House Democrat to imply that they will withdraw from public office in 2022, a list that includes powerful House Budget Committee chairman John Yarmuth of Kentucky and House Democratic Steering Committee co-chair Cheri Bustos of Illinois.
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