The only way to get anywhere in Congress is to stay there and let seniority take its course.
The longer you're here [in Congress] the better seniority looks.
I continued to serve in Congress until 2001.
It wasn't until after I was reelected in 1982 that I thought of myself as a long-term member of Congress.
I've been critical of Hillary Clinton and [Barack] Obama, for sure. But John McCain had a proven record as a senator. He also ran for president [in 2016]. But he got a lot of stuff done while he was a United States senator and still does.
It has been a tremendous privilege to serve the people of Utah during my time in the United States House of Representatives, but my time in the House should not be the sum total of my service.
The average prison term for a convicted murderer in America is 6.5 years. The average tenure for a member of Congress is 13 years. We've got it backwards. We are giving early release to the wrong criminal class.
Either you die in Congress or you get out before you are 60 so you can still do something else.
Everyone knows that a federal job is a lifetime job, and for many in Congress, it seems they have a lifetime job, too.
The average term length of a member of congress is approaching 15 years, and the average term length of a convicted criminal is less than three. We've got that backward.
Joining the Bipartisan Policy Center is a natural extension of my efforts to achieve results throughout my tenure in Congress, and it provides an ideal means for developing strategies that can garner the broad support necessary to achieve real solutions to the challenges confronting our nation.
I am not a career politician, even though this is my 12th year in the United States House of Representatives.
I represented the 4th District of South Carolina... from the election '92 until election '98. And then I was out six years and then came back for another six years between the election 2004 and the election 2010.
I support efforts to limit the terms of members of Congress, especially members of the House and members of the Senate.
If I only had 12 years left to live, I'd want to live it as a member of Congress because that was the 12 longest years of my life.
Today I am announcing that I will not seek a tenth term in the United States Congress this November.
