Senator Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat and the chamber’s most senior member, said Monday he will not seek reelection in 2022, opening a scramble to fill his seat in a narrowly divided Congress where the party is fighting to retain control after next year’s midterm elections.
Speaking at the State House in Montpelier, where he first launched his Senate career nearly half a century ago, Leahy, 81, said he was proud to be his state’s longest-serving senator and had worked to bring Vermont’s voice and values to the nation and the world. But he and his wife, Marcelle, had concluded it was time “to put down the gavel,” he said.
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