Rep. Bachmann looks forward to 'limitless' future, but not in the House
Updated Wednesday 5/29 at 10:30 a.m. ET
(CNN) - U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, a conservative firebrand whose bid for president last year ended after the Iowa caucuses, will not seek re-election to her Minnesota congressional seat in 2014.
Making her announcement in a video posted to her campaign website early Wednesday, Bachmann stressed she had no plans to fade from public view.
"Looking forward, after the completion of my term, my future is full, it is limitless, and my passions for America will remain," she announced.
Bachmann, who's in her fourth term representing Minnesota's 6th District, promised that there "is no future option or opportunity" that she "won't be giving serious consideration if it can help save and protect our great nation for future generations."
Bachmann staved off a tougher-than-expected challenge for her seat last November against Democrat Jim Graves, winning re-election by just under 5,000 votes. Graves has announced he will seek the seat again in 2014.
In her video announcement, Bachmann said her decision was not influenced by any concerns about winning reelection.
"I've always, in the past, defeated candidates who were capable, qualified, and well-funded. And I have every confidence that if I ran, I would again defeat the individual who I defeated last year, who recently announced that he is once again running," Bachmann said.
Nor was her decision based on any concerns over an ongoing congressional ethics inquiry into the improper transfer of campaign funds, Bachmann said in her video. She is also facing a Federal Election Commission complaint about her former presidential campaign.
"This decision was not impacted in any way by the recent inquiries into the activities of my former presidential campaign or my former presidential staff," she said. "It was clearly understood that compliance with all rules and regulations was an absolute necessity for my presidential campaign. And I have no reason to believe that that was not the case."
Bachmann's run for president in 2012 reached its peak in August 2011, when she beat out a slate of other candidates to win the Ames Straw Poll in the early voting state of Iowa, where she was born. Her campaign lost steam in the fall to other conservative candidates like Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, and she eventually placed sixth in the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses. She ended her presidential bid the next day.
In the eight-minute long video, Bachmann, an early supporter of the Tea Party movement, touted her work on a variety of conservative issues, promising to "to work vehemently and robustly to fight back against what most in the other party want to do to transform our country into becoming, which would be a nation that our founders would hardly even recognize today."
Bachmann was one of the leading supporters of the emerging tea party movement in 2010, founding the "tea party caucus" in the House of Representatives and delivering her own "tea party response" to President Barack Obama's State of the Union address. Most recently she organized a tea party rally on Capitol Hill protesting the Internal Revenue Service's admitted targeting of conservative groups applying for tax exempt status.
In her video, she said she wouldn't let up on the causes she championed as a U.S. representative.
"I promise you I have and I will continue to fight to protect innocent human life, traditional marriage, family values, religious liberty, and academic excellence," Bachmann said.
In a polite statement, National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Rep. Greg Walden wrote Bachmann "has been a tireless advocate and dedicated Representative for the people of Minnesota’s Sixth District."
"Michele was the first Republican woman elected to represent Minnesota in the U.S. House of Representatives, and she has worked hard each day to ensure that her constituents’ voices are heard in the halls of Congress," he continued.
Democrats were less laudatory - the House Majority PAC, which works to elect Democrats to Congress, wrote Bachmann's decision was "good news for the people of Minnesota and our nation."
"Bachmann voluntarily removing herself from Congress is a victory we can all celebrate today," the group's executive director Alixandria Lapp wrote.
CNN's Kevin Liptak and Martina Stewart contributed to this report.
From CNN Politics
- US flying surveillance drones farther south over Black Sea after collision with Russian fighter jet, officials say
- 10 Cards Charging 0% Interest Until 2024
- US to send Patriot missile systems and tanks to Ukraine faster than originally planned
- Bruce Springsteen, Gladys Knight among group honored at the White House
- Untitled
- Exclusive: Communications between Stormy Daniels and Trump attorney turned over to Manhattan DA
Perhaps God finally did answer a prayer.
"I promise you I have and I will continue to fight to protect innocent human life, traditional marriage, family values, religious liberty, and academic excellence,"
Time to move on to a job as a lawyer lobbyist.
Of course, this has nothing to do with the fact that the ethics investigation will also end with her resignation.
Nnnnnnoooooooo.
Really CNN two days of this yet no real news about the disasters of Obama and Holder? Liberal biased much CNN?
-------------
Isn't Faux News available? CNN already reported on the "disasters." Obama isn't getting impeached and Holder is not getting fired. Go find some other "controversy" to sink your teeth in, lol!
People post things like "good riddance, she's an embarrassment". She's not an embarrassment. She's a symptom. She's indicative of the viewpoint of the ignorant religious-driven ideologues on the right, and we have to recognize the disease that allows an 'embarrassment' like her to gain, and keep, power and influence.
So Fox News gave her a contract.
I hope she stays out of politics, either by her own will or by the will of the voters. Someone so against equal rights and so warped by religion should never, ever hold a seat of power in the United States.
Good riddance, Bachmann. Now you can join your freak-circus sideshow along with Palin, Angle, Santorum, Gingrich and your entire cast of cast-a-way nutcases and loony reactionaries.
For Bachmann to claim to serve all of the citizens of Minnesota, as opposed to really only her pet neo-conservatives and special interest groups, is just as disingenuous as her closet-case husband claiming to be hetero – when the reality is he is just as fake as she is, and just as fake as her campaign, her finance records and her faux morality which is merely only just another political tool and weapon. Just like her beloved Tea Party is politically and financially bankrupt – Michelle Bachmann is politically, morally and psychologically bankrupt. Bachmann will join the new list of outsted moralizing extremists who are no longer in public office and as grossly-incompetent, never should have been elected as even a city dog catcher, let alone to Congress.
Translation: Bachmann will continue to fight to undermine the religions of other people who do not subscribe to her religious zealotry by blocking women's access to reproductive health care choices. Bachmann will continue to steamroll over the religions of others who do not subscribe to her religious extemism by denying loving couples the same rights of other Americans under the law, such as the right to marry. Bachmann will continue to shove her religion down the throats of others in the feigned name of "religious liberty", which it is actually religious bullying, and work to rewrite all laws under her religious point of view denying others the right to live freely within the scope of their own beliefs. Bachmann's ridicious brand of Christianity is disingenuous to any form of legitimate spirituality – her religion is nothing more than a weapon to win her bigoted culture war and micromanage the lives of people to her liking.
Hmm...this is not going far enough. She should be decapitated and her body drug through the streets like they do in the Middle East. She is extremely mentally ill. Anyone that would have voted for her should be done the same way.
Mike Lake Orion – leaving behind the cesspool? She helped to create it and to keep it well-stocked. The only downside of having BatGuano Bachmann leaving is that there will be one less person to laugh at there. But clearly the people in her district are quite capable of electing ignorant, bellicose, clueless and raving lunatics so there's a chance her replacement will be equally putrid (and yet funny).
What no shop worn excuse to "spend more time with the family"?
So, missy can sit back and enjoy the gubmint farm subsidies her family receives, not to mention the Medicaid payments Marcus receives for his "pray the gay away" CAMP(pun intended)!
All those "handouts" she has railed against for 6 years, like Lyin' Ryan and his wanting to shut off survivor benefits from SSN, AFTER, he used them.
We can hope that this is the beginning of the GOP Happy Hypocrite retirement home and mossy missy is the first resident!
Bigger question what were Obama's accomplishments prior to being president .. Voting 121 times president or getting elected ? Other question What are Hillary's accomplishments ... 4 dead in Benghazi, When she was first lady couldn't get healthcare thru or voting for the invasion of Iraq ? MN already has an embarrassment it's called Stuart Smally .. or Jesse "The Body" Ventura
This is good news. How could can the modern Muslims that are been told to speak out, how could they speak when they don’t have the media on their side. While the media give chance to terrorist speeches and fasciitis speeches. Today’s media is disappointing
I hope I never have to wake up and find out that this isn't really true.
Clearly, she is intending to run for president in 2014.
This is the best political news I have heard in a while. This rotten excuse for a human being and the worst elected official in Washington today. She can't leave soon enough
Let's just hope that she doesn't decide on a Senate run.
This is really good news. Crazy eyes will be gone. We need more rational Republicans in Washington. I bet she'll become a commentator over at Faux News.
From Iowa straw poll presidential winner in August 2011 to bowing out of Congress in May 2013. A 20-month meteoric fall. Good bye Michelle
The sad part of the Michelle Bachman fiasco is that some people in Minnesota actually kept electing her. That is a very scary proposition that this electorate saw her as a person to represent their view points in Congress.
Are people there that much out of the loop they did not recognize her obvious mental health issues or did they truly see her as a viable person to speak for them?
Which also means she could probably buy a gun, which shows how broken that system is because this woman is transparently and obviously insane.
Ms. Bachman – thank you for your years of obstructionistic lack of leadership in the House. To show the American Voters once again (i.e. G.W. Bush and 570 voters in the state of Florida in 2000), if 5,001 more of her state's voters in Nov 2012 would have voted for the other person, 2 more years of obstructionistic lack of leadership could have been avoided, time is not what this country has got anymore.
This is great news but I fear she will just "pull a Palin". She will be free to spread her loonacy and get compensated handsomely for it too.
God has spoken....out against extremist politicians.
She's leaving because she knows she'll lose the next election after barely squeaking by in the last one.
Here in Minnesota, we're throwing a HUGE Party today in honor of this wonderful news! Good riddance to the most divisive and delusional member of Congress! By this time next year, she'll either be in a Federal Prison, or back on her home planet.