Longest-Serving U.S. Congressman to Retire

The longest-serving member of the U.S. Congress will not run for re-election, his office said Monday, drawing the curtain on an extraordinary career that began six years before President Barack Obama was born.

"I'm not going to be carried out feet first," 87-year-old Democrat John Dingell, who has been on the job in the House of Representatives since 1955, told the Detroit News, which first reported the story.

"I don't want people to say I stayed too long."

Dingell became the longest-serving U.S. lawmaker last June, when he began his 20,997th day in office, eclipsing the previous milestone held by late Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia.

Dingell told the newspaper his doctors gave him a clean bill of health, and that he remains "as smart and capable as anyone" on Capitol Hill.

But the Michigander who has served under 11 presidents and cast more than 25,000 votes expressed irritation with the bickering in today's Congress, saying he now finds it "obnoxious" to serve in the House.

"This is not the Congress I know and love," he said. "It's hard for me to accept, but it's time to cash it in."

Dingell was expected to announce his retirement at a luncheon in suburban Detroit.

The hard-nosed legislator, who once made Republican adversaries or witnesses at his hearings quiver in their wingtips, at age 29 claimed the seat that his father held for more than two decades until his death.

Last year, he told Agence France Presse that he had begun to sour on the partisan gridlock that has come to symbolize the 21st century Congress.

"In the old days there were rules, comity was practiced and compromise was not a dirty word," he said at the time.

"Today, you're sent down here to fight, not work."

While he makes a point of remaining civil with colleagues, Dingell has had his share of battles. As chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee for 13 years until 1994 he wielded great power.

The man who once brought a shotgun into the White House -- he was lending it to president Bill Clinton so the pair could go duck hunting -- takes things more slowly now, often puttering down the hallways in a motorized cart that has "The Dean" emblazoned on its license plate.