Tom Latham won't seek re-election

DES MOINES — Aides to U.S. Rep. Tom Latham say the 10-term Iowa Republican will not seek re-election in 2014.

The 65-year-old Republican from Clive will have spent 20 years in Congress and is Iowa's senior U.S. House member.

His decision creates an open seat that includes the Des Moines area, Iowa's most populous region.

This is who RINO Latham is:
Latham was elected as the congressman for Iowa’s 5th congressional district in 1994[3] as part of the wave that allowed Republicans to take over the House for the first time since 1955. The 5th was far and away the most Republican district in the state, and Latham never faced a serious challenge as the 5th District’s congressman. In 1994 he defeated Democrat Sheila McGuire garnering 61 percent of the vote. In 1996 he won 65 percent of the vote in defeating Democrat MacDonald Smith, and he ran unopposed in the 1998 election.[3]
For his first four terms, Latham represented a district that stretched from Sioux City in the northwest all the way to Mason City. The 2000 round of redistricting, however, significantly altered Iowa’s congressional map. Latham’s home in Alexander, along with most of the eastern third of his old district, was placed in the new 4th District in the north-central part of the state. This district was considered much more competitive than Latham’s old district. For the 2008 elections, it had a Cook Partisan Voting Index of D+0.4, making it one of the most marginal districts in the nation. However, he was reelected four times from this district without much difficulty. This may be because he is the only Iowan on the powerful House Appropriations Committee.[3] It is considered very difficult to unseat an Appropriations Committee member.
In the 2006 election, neither the Republican nor Democratic parties had a contested primary. His opponent in the 2006 general election was Selden Spencer, a neurologist from Huxley. Latham, who had moved to Ames, closer to the center of the district, earned 57.3% of the vote as he won reelection.
In the 2008 election Latham won against Democratic nominee Becky Greenwald with 61 percent of the vote even as Barack Obama carried the district by eight points.
In 2010, Latham won against Democratic nominee Bill Maske, a school administrator.
Iowa lost a district as a result of the 2010 census. The new congressional map placed Latham and fellow Republican Steve King into the same district. While it retained Latham’s district number, it contains more of King’s old territory. Indeed, it closely resembled the territory Latham represented for his first four terms.[8] Latham opted to run in the reconfigured 3rd District, which stretches from Des Moines to Council Bluffs. He sold his home in Ames and bought a home in Clive, a suburb of Des Moines. He defeated Democratic incumbent Leonard Boswell in the 2012 election.[9]
On February 27, 2013, Latham announced that he will not seek the open Senate seat of Tom Harkin in 2014.
In August 2013, Latham was quoted rejecting any government shutdown at a town hall meeting in Atlantic, Iowa. “I’m certainly not for any kind of government shutdown for any reason. Especially, you’ve got people in the armed services overseas, their families at home and to cut — shut down the government and not support our men and women in uniform and their families, the veterans, all those types of things — I think it would be irresponsible.”[10]
Latham requested to have his salary withheld during the United States federal government shutdown of 2013.[11]

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