DROPPING LIKE FLIES

Georgia GOP Rep. Tom Graves Announces Retirement in 2020

The congressman is the latest Republican to not seek House re-election in 2020.

U.S. Rep. Tom Graves, a senior Republican in Georgia’s House delegation, announced Thursday that he won’t seek re-election in 2020. Graves, who is serving his fifth term, wrote in his statement, “As we all do, I’m entering a new season in life. An exciting season,” adding that the holidays have been a “time of reflection.” The congressman was first elected in 2010 when the conservative political “tea party” movement brought a number of Republicans into Congress, which helped them gain control of the House that year.

Graves is the 20th House Republican to announce his retirement in 2020. During the 2016 election year, Graves issued a statement announcing that he voted for Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) in the Georgia Republican presidential primary and said that he had “trouble seeing” how Trump “lines up with the great tradition of Lincoln and Reagan. “I’m concerned that many of his statements run afoul of the Constitution, my values and my beliefs,” he added.