A top Senate Republican and member of the Republican leadership team has just announced he will not seek re-election next year. Missouri’s Roy Blunt, who has served in Congress since 1997, even serving as Acting House Majority Leader, will leave a solid record of anti-LGBTQ and anti-women votes.
“After 14 General Election victories — three to county office, seven to the United States House of Representatives, and four statewide elections — I won’t be a candidate for reelection to the United States Senate next year,” Blunt said in a video, as Politico reports.
Blunt becomes the fifth Republican Senator to announce he is retiring.
In 2019 Sen. Blunt signed onto an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to rule against LGBTQ people, and declare the Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not protect gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people. The court ruled for LGBTQ civil rights.
In December Blunt served on the six-member joint, bipartisan House and Senate Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies (JCCIC) that killed a resolution naming Joe Biden President-elect.
During President Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial, when never-before seen graphic video of the attack on the U.S. Capitol was played, Blunt falsely told reporters “similar kinds of tragedies” took place in Seattle when people took to the streets to protest the police killings of unarmed Black men, sparked by the killing of George Floyd.
Blunt has voted to constitutionally ban same-sex marriage, voted to amend the Constitution to make marriage only between a man and a woman, against renewing the Violence Against Women Act, voted against prohibiting job discrimination based on sexual orientation, and voted against allowing same-sex couples to adopt.