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Edgewater, MD — Rep. Steny Hoyer, 86, has announced that he will not seek reelection after the current term, capping off a nearly six-decade career in elected office.

Harry Jarin, 36, Democratic candidate in Maryland’s 5th Congressional District, issued the following statement in response to Hoyer’s retirement:

“I want to thank Steny Hoyer for his many decades of service to Maryland. At the height of his career, Hoyer was a fierce and staunch advocate for Marylanders in Congress. His service deserves respect, and I acknowledge the role he played in shaping an earlier era of the Democratic Party.

My campaign has never been just about one politician’s age, but rather about how Democrats have failed to advance a vision of the future in which everyday Americans can see themselves. It was this failure that created the conditions for a fascist movement to take power in America. Rather than make difficult decisions, Congress surrendered much of its power to an increasingly authoritarian and out-of-control executive. As a Jewish American and the grandson of Holocaust survivors, I am particularly attuned to the dangers of democratic backsliding, political violence, and the normalization of hatred through media technology, all of which are being enabled by the current administration.

This announcement also comes just after the anniversary of the January 6 coup attempt. The fact that its architect was neither imprisoned nor barred from the ballot is the central reason we are where we are now. Congress failed in its constitutional duty to remove and permanently disqualify a criminal president who obstructed the peaceful transfer of power. The responsibility now falls to those of us elected to the next Congress to do what should have been done then: hold Donald Trump and all the other officials in his administration who abuse their offices for personal gain, commit crimes, or openly disregard the Constitution fully accountable under the law.

As I’ve said before: when a house is on fire, you don’t send in the same people who let it spread in the first place – you send in a firefighter. We can’t afford to simply replace Steny Hoyer with one of his staffers, a career politician who operates identically, or a lobbyist who puts the needs of PACs and corporations over constituents. Restoring Congress as a coequal branch of government will be the work of a generation. The choices we make in the next few years will determine whether the United States continues its slide toward authoritarianism, or whether we rebuild a functioning democracy capable of delivering for working people ahead of billionaires.

While many waited on the sidelines, calculating timing and hoping to win an insider’s game of succession planning, I chose to stand up early and say plainly that the Democratic Party’s institutional complacency has failed the country. While I’m sure others will jump into this race, I look forward to continued engagement with voters across Maryland’s 5th district in the coming months on pressing issues in our lives like affordable healthcare, smart growth and housing, improving transportation networks, protecting first responders, and most of all, restoring Congress as a functional institution and sanity to our politics.”