CALLING IT A DAY

Another High-Profile Democrat Announces Retirement From Congress

California Rep. Jackie Speier, who survived being shot five times after traveling to investigate Jim Jones’ cult at Jonestown, said she won’t seek re-election.

Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA) announced Tuesday morning she would not seek re-election to Congress in 2022. “It’s time for me to come home—time for me to be more than a weekend wife, mother, and friend,” Speier, 71, said in a video announcement. She called her nearly four decades as a political representative of California, on both local and federal levels, “a remarkable journey that has surpassed my wildest dreams.” In the video, Speier also remembered the 1978 Jonestown massacre, which she survived after traveling there as a legislative aide to investigate human rights abuses with her then-boss, Congressman Leo Ryan. As cult members opened fire on the group, Speier was shot five times, and five people, including Ryan, were killed. “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. I lived and I served.”