Patrick Leahy: Longest-serving current Senator not seeking re-election

The Senator was elected in 1974 and is chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Senator Patrick Leahy, D-Vt, will preside over the impeachment trial this week. (AFP via Getty Images)

Democratic Sen Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the longest-serving Senator currently in office, announced Monday that he would not seek reelection.

Mr Leahy, 81, is currently the Senate President Pro Tempore, meaning he is third in line to the presidency, and chairman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee. He made the announcement on Monday in a press conference, according to Vermont’s NBC affiliate.

“It is time to pass the torch to the next Vermonter to carry on this work of our great state,” he said. “It’s time to come home. So I will forever carry with me the enduring bond with my fellow Vermonters, whose common sense and goodness is what I strive to match as their representative.”

Mr Leahy was first elected in 1974 as part of a wave year of “Watergate Babies” who were elected in the wake of the scandal that embroiled President Richard Nixon, who resigned that very year. In time, Mr Leahy would serve seven more terms.

As chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he oversaw the confirmation of both of President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

At the same time, he occasionally clashed with Republicans. When he questioned then-Vice President Dick Cheney’s ties to Halliburton during a photo-op, which led to Mr Cheney telling him to “go f*** yourself.”

A longtime comic book fan, Mr Leahy has also appeared in multiple Batman films, including in The Dark Knight, where Heath Ledger’s Joker pulled a knife on him. Most recently, he played Sen Purrington on Capitol Hill in the movie Batman V Superman: The Dawn of Justice, in 2016.

Mr Leahy is also the only Democrat Vermont has ever elected as Sen Bernie Sanders is an Independent who caucuses with the Democrats.

Current Gov Phil Scott, a moderate Republican with high approval ratings in an overwhelmingly liberal state, already said he would pass on running for Mr Leahy’s seat in an interview with The Atlantic. That all but guarantees the seat will likely go to a Democrat.