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.
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Let there be dancing in the streets!
Yes Virginia there IS a Santa Clause.
Yipppeee! Here comes the endless Palinesque book and bus tour. Hate to see her go. She is a one woman political circus. Sad day for politainment.
Great news!!!!
She should move to Alaska and spend the rest of her life living off the money the teabaggers tithe to her "presidenshul explory commityy", just like all true quitters do.
Good riddance to bad rubbish
And the rest of us look forward to her NOT returning, as well!
Give em' Hell, Michele!
Good riddance.
Please please change your plans and fade from public view.
Great News
finally! The Bach-Ness Monster is no more!!!!
Thank you, thank you, thank you God.... For getting that nut job out of Washington.
This is my disappointed face 🙂
This woman is an embarrassment to her district, her state and our country.
Her future - in politics and elsewhere - is limited only by her ignorance, which is truly without limits.
Maybe there is a God?
Rand Paul/ Bachmann 2016. No science, math classes but Bible, k through 12.
GOP is gone to dogs–pretty much sure.
Ah, but she will still get to live off the rest of us for the remainder of her life. Based on the tables used to determine Congressional pensions, within 10 years she will be collecting more as a "retired" Congresswoman than will be earned by those still in office (with the possible exception of the Speaker, Majority and Minority Leaders).
She served until the job was done or she got the pension.
No loss.
She´s full of it ! She knows she can´t possibly keep fooling the goofs in her district . She´s also facing
a federal inquiry . Ratpublicans are a dying breed and for the sake of the U.S , the sooner the better .
Thank Ms. Bachman for this great service to the country!
Ha, she knows it is the end of the road for her and the TPers. The majority of Americans know what the TPers have done to destroy the GOP, Congress and America
She realized the even gerrimandering would not get her elected this time around.