"Jim Risch wants to be chairman,” Sen. Marco Rubio said Wednesday. “I'll support him."

Rubio won’t seek Foreign Relations chairmanship

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said Wednesday that he has no interest in seeking the chairmanship of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, clearing the way for Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho) to claim the gavel in the next Congress.

The committee’s current chairman, Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, announced Tuesday that he would not seek reelection in 2018. Risch is next in seniority on the panel, although Rubio — a former presidential candidate who has made foreign policy a major part of his Senate portfolio — could have made a play for it as well.


But Rubio responded “no” when asked whether he was interested in vying for the chairmanship in 2019.

"Jim Risch wants to be chairman,” Rubio said Wednesday. “I'll support him."

Risch, who also sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told the Washington Post that he expected seniority to determine who will succeed Corker as chairman, saying: “We have a long, clear history of how these things are resolved in the Senate.”

Democrats are privately wary of Risch taking the gavel given his scant record of action at the helm of the Foreign Relations subcommittee overseeing the Middle East and counterterrorism. Risch’s subcommittee has not held any hearings so far this year.

Corker, in an interview with POLITICO, quipped that Risch is probably the happiest person aside from the Tennessee senator’s family on his decision to retire and said he jokes to Risch about “having to check my food for poison” when they sit next to each other.

Burgess Everett contributed to this report.