Rep. Jackie Speier Latest Democrat to Announce Retirement From Congress

California Representative Jackie Speier announced on Tuesday she will not seek reelection, becoming the latest House Democrat to announce retirement before the 2022 midterm election cycle.

The seven-term congresswoman said it has been an "extraordinary privilege" to serve, but it was time for her to step down.

"It's time for me to come home. Time for me to be more than a weekend wife, mother and friend," Speier said.

Speier first ran for office in 1978, after surviving an ambush by Jim Jones cult followers that killed her congressman boss in Guyana.

"I vowed that if I survived, I would dedicate my life to public service. I lived, and I served," Speier said in the video announcing her retirement.

Speier is now the 14th House Democrat to announce retirement and not seek reelection in 2022. Most have given reasons beyond politics for retiring, like the desire to spend more time with family, or to allow someone else to serve.

For more reporting from the Associated Press, see below.

Speier recalled how she was inspired to pursue a career in public service after she accompanied her boss, Representative Leo J. Ryan, on a flight to Guyana in a disastrous 1978 attempt to rescue 900 followers of the cult leader Jim Jones.

Ryan was investigating complaints his office received about conditions at the jungle settlement established by Jones and his followers, known as Jonestown. But the trip ended in tragedy.

Ryan and four others were shot to death on an airstrip by gunmen who were followers of Jones. Speier, who was 29 at the time, was shot five times, with bullets ripping through her arm and leg. Hours later, Jones exhorted members of his flock to drink cyanide-laced punch in a mass murder-suicide.

After losing a bid for Ryan's former seat a year after the attack, Speier went on to serve for six years on the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors and 18 years in the California Legislature, where she developed a reputation as a consumer advocate and critic of the state's troubled prison system.

She was first elected to Congress in 2008, claiming her former boss' seat. During her time in the House she has championed women's rights. At the outset of the #MeToo movement, she shared her own story of being sexually harassed as a young congressional aide by an office chief-of-staff.

"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."

Her work helped pass the Congressional Accountability Act Reform Act, which went into effect in 2019 and expands protections for congressional aides who have been subject to harassment.

But the pileup of retirements is a foreboding sign for Democrats, underscoring the reality that party that wins the White House typically loses congressional seats in the following midterm elections. More members are expected to depart as they contend with the reality that they could find themselves in the minority.