Senator Gramm is leaving us.

alledan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas, a former Democrat turned Republican and a leading conservative voice in Congress for more than two decades, said on Tuesday he will not seek re-election to a fourth term next year."Remarkably the things I came to Washington to do are done," Gramm said, citing a balanced budget, welfare reform, a bolstered national defense and a roll back on communism."What better time to call it a career," said Gramm, 59, flanked at a Capitol Hill news conference by his wife Wendy and dozens of staffers.The former 1996 presidential hopeful was the second veteran Republican in as many months to announce he will retire from the Senate next year, joining Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina.Republicans will try to regain control of the Senate in the 2002 elections after losing it in June when Sen. James Jeffords of Vermont dropped out of the party to become an independent, giving Democrats a one-seat margin.Helms' departure promises a wide-open race to succeed him, but Texas is a far more Republican state than North Carolina. Gramm said one reason he decided to announce his decision now was his "absolute confidence" Texans would pick a Republican to replace him. Overall, 20 Republicans and 14 Democrats in the 100-member Senate are up for re-election next year. Sen. Fred Thompson, a Tennessee Republican, has not yet said whether he will seek another term.Jennifer Duffy, who tracks Senate races for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, said, "I'd say Texas will be a tough state for Democrats to win next year, but North Carolina could provide an opportunity for them."LONG LIST TO REPLACE GRAMMDuffy said there are already a number of potential successors to Gramm. She said Democrats included former Texas Attorney General Dan Morales, Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk and Rep. Ken Bentsen.Among Republicans, she said, some of the leading possibilities were Rep. Henry Bonilla, Texas Land Commissioner David Dewhurst and Texas Attorney General John Cornyn.Gramm said he had not decided what to do when he leaves Congress, adding, "I have not ruled anything in, I have not ruled anything out.""I've had as close to a picture-book career public service as you could have," Gramm said. "I want to have the chance to go out and have one more career, whether it's running a business or being a goat herder or whatever."President Bush said, "The Senate is losing a principled leader." He called Gramm "a man of common sense and uncommon courage."Financial industry sources have said they see Gramm, a former economics professor and long-time advocate of conservative fiscal policies, as a potential successor to Alan Greenspan as head of the Federal Reserve System or as a member of the nation's central bank.Greenspan, who has given no indication that he plans to step down from the Fed any time soon, was reappointed last year to a fourth, four-year term that ends in June 2004, when he will be 78.Gramm, who lost the chairmanship of the Banking Committee in June when Democrats took control of the Senate, helped shepherd through Congress a sweeping overhaul of Depression-era U.S. banking laws to allow banks, brokers and insurers to merge and get into each other's businesses.DEFENDS TAX CUTGramm on Tuesday rejected suggestions that Bush's $1.3 trillion tax cut that he helped champion contributed to the economic slowdown, and said taxes should be cut again. "It will help the economy," said Gramm.Gramm made an unsuccessful bid for the 1996 Republican presidential nomination on an uncompromising economic message of lower taxes and smaller government.Yet his campaign failed to ignite as the party's presidential nomination went to Bob Dole of Kansas. All the pluses and minuses of the Gramm candidacy were on display at a Dallas fund-raising gathering when he managed to collect $4.1 million, then a record for a single event."I have the most reliable friend you can have in political life and that is ready money," he told his supporters.A native of Fort Benning, Georgia, Gramm worked as an economics professor at Texas A&M University before entering politics.He won a seat in the House of Representatives in 1978 as a Democrat. He broke with the Democrats in January 1983 and quit the House to win election as a Republican a month later in a special election. He was elected to the Senate in 1984 and was re-elected in 1990 and 1996.His name was often linked with efforts to cut taxes and balance the federal budget, including 1985 Gramm-Rudman law, which was a short-lived plan to balance the budget by 1991.Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, another Texas Republican, saluted Gramm, saying, "He is respected and feared. He will be missed."

Rembrandt

He will be missed....I had the opportunity to work with him and his Presidential campaign some years ago, we held a celebrity sporting clays shoot where he shot clays for the media and supporters. He was the only candidate to actively support the 2nd amendment....a great hunter, shooter, and conservative. When he got up to shoot, the press went nuts trying to get photos of a politician holding a gun...he did it with style...invited his son to come up and shoot clays with him, took the time to greet all the shooters....he wasn't ashamed to be one of them in front of the cameras.

Free N TX

Senator Gramm is one of the few politicians that will be greatly missed. He has done a lot, both for Texas and America. He has a long list of accomplishments that you would be hard pressed to match. He has been a man of high principles and integrity. May God bless him and his family in his future endevors. I for one wish him the best, even if it is to retire and just go hunting and fishing, he has earned it.