One Day After Pelosi Elected Speaker

U.S. Senator Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas, is expected to announce today he is retiring at an event today, according to McClatchy and Politico. His remarks will come just one day after Nancy Pelosi was elected Speaker of the House. It is expected Roberts will remain through the end of his term in January of 2021.

Roberts is a virulently anti-gay lawmaker who fought same-sex marriage and used the issue to drive voters to the polls. He has received nearly half a million dollars from the oil and gas industry, and advocated for President Trump to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement.

In 2016 Senator Roberts blocked President Barack Obama’s nominee for Secretary of the Army. Eric Fanning, who is openly gay, was the most qualified candidate for the position ever nominated. Roberts vowed Fanning would never receive a confirmation vote.

“I want to stress that it’s nothing personal,” Roberts claimed in January of 2016. “It’s just the way it is.”

Senator Roberts claimed he was using Fanning’s nomination as a tool to ensure President Obama never closed Guantanamo Bay, but there was no link between Fanning and the potential closing of the U.S. Military base in Cuba.

Fanning ultimately was confirmed in May of that year, 242 days after being nominated, and became the highest-ranking openly-LGBT military official in U.S. history.

Facing a tough re-election battle in 2014 Roberts invoked his stance against same-sex marriage as a way to get supporters to the polls. Roberts, who is 82, was first elected in 1996. That year he told voters, “I plan only to serve two terms in the U.S. Senate.”

Politico suggests a Democrat might be able to win the Kansas Senate seat.

“Democrat Laura Kelly won the gubernatorial race last fall, and Democrats also flipped a Republican-controlled House seat, indicating that Democrats could force a competitive Senate race under the right circumstances.”

Sen. Roberts is the chairman of the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry.

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