Senator Richard Shelby does not want to be re-elected next year and on Monday announced his long-awaited resignation which includes a six-term term, which includes leadership of the Senate committees on intelligence, banking and credit.
Shelby, 86, was first elected a Democrat in 1986; he immediately switched from the parties to becoming a Republican after the continuation of the GOP in the 1994 midterm elections.
The powerful Alabamian’s resignation will open a Senate seat in a safe Republican state, where Tommy Tuberville, the current president of the GOP, just ousted a Democratic president, Doug Jones, by more than 20 percentage points last November.