Speier won’t seek another term in 2022
WASHINGTON — Longtime California Rep. Jackie Speier, who first ran for office after surviving a 1978 ambush by cult followers that killed her congressman boss, said Tuesday that she would not seek re-election.
The seven-term congresswoman’s decision to step down from a safe Democratic seat in the San Francisco Bay Area makes her the latest House Democrat to announce retirement ahead of a fraught 2022 midterm election cycle, a troubling sign for Democrats clinging to a narrow majority.
Speier said in a video message that it was an “extraordinary privilege” to serve. But after nearly 40 years in public office at the local, state and federal level, it was time to step aside, she said.
“It’s time for me to come home,” Speier said. “Time for me to be more than a weekend wife, mother and friend.”
Speier recalled how she was inspired to pursue a career in public service after she accompanied her boss, Rep. 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.
“I vowed that if I survived, I would dedicate my life to public service,” Speier said. “I lived, and I served.”