Abandon ship - Henry Waxman to retire

From Hot Air:

And so, with news swirling today that Democrats have given up on retaking the House that they lost after the ObamaCare backlash three years ago, one of the law’s architects decides to throw in the towel. Perfection.

When he goes home in January, he’ll have served 40 years in Congress. Before taking his seat in 1975, he served six years as a member of the California state legislature. His entire adult life from the age of 29 has been spent in government. Grotesque.
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Here’s a list of the many, many bills he helped write over the years. Scroll through and you’ll see this is no ordinary retirement; this is House Democrats losing one of their policy engines. It’s no ordinary retirement for the leadership, either. Waxman was, famously, one of Pelosi’s right-hand men; so was George Miller, another California Democrat who’s on his way out. Expect the Pelosi Retirement Watch to begin … well, now, actually.

An interesting footnote on Waxman: His district became more conservative after the lines were redrawn as part of the 2010 redistricting. Evidently California’s Democratic legislature decided to stick him with a few more Republican voters on the assumption that, as a state institution and perennial winner, he could handle it with no sweat. It didn’t play out that way in 2012. He won by just eight points over an independent, a scent of blood in the water that attracted newbie candidates this year. A guy who’s spent his 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and half of his 70s winning elections isn’t going to risk leaving Congress by being ignominiously hauled out by voters, a fate that his California colleague Pete Stark — who also served 40 years in the House — suffered in 2012. You can’t fire Henry. He quits.

I so wish the arrogant bastard would run again and lose, like Pete Stark did. Not quit, but fired.