House Transportation Committee Chairman Bill Shuster announced Tuesday that he’s stepping down at the end of his term, joining a fast-growing wave of GOP lawmakers heading for the exits.
Since he is term-limited out of the committee's chairmanship after three terms, many insiders had speculated that this would be Shuster’s last year in Congress.
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With Tuesday's announcement, the Pennsylvanian joins a long list of Republicans stepping down in 2018, including Aviation Subcommittee Chairman Frank LoBiondo of New Jersey, Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Vice Chairman John Duncan of Tennessee and committee member Blake Farenthold of Texas.
The news of Shuster’s impending departure was overshadowed by the announcement that Orrin Hatch of Utah, the longest-serving GOP senator, would also be stepping down in 2018, opening the door to a juicy contest involving President Donald Trump’s nemesis, Mitt Romney, the 2012 GOP presidential nominee.
Shuster said he planned to devote his final year to pushing for an infrastructure bill, an initiative both parties have said is long overdue but which has yet to gain momentum because of Congress' failure to identify politically viable funding options.
“Rather than focusing on a reelection campaign, I thought it wiser to spend my last year as Chairman focusing 100 percent on working with President Trump and my Republican and Democratic colleagues in both Chambers to pass a much needed infrastructure bill to rebuild America,” Shuster said in a statement sent by his congressional office.
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Shuster and Trump met last month, and both were surprisingly tight-lipped afterward about what they discussed. A source close to Shuster said he won't be joining the administration.
Shuster hasn't faced a serious general election challenge for his southwestern Pennsylvania seat, winning reelection by wide margins in a district that backed Trump by 42 points. But in 2016, he squeaked by frequent primary challenger Art Halvorson by 2 points. Halvorson went on to run against Shuster as a Democrat in the 2016 general election, losing by 26 points. Halvorson announced later Tuesday that he would again run for the seat.
Republican operatives identified state Sen. John Eichelberger Jr. as a potential candidate to replace Shuster, and other candidates are expected to jump into the race now that the nine-term congressman formally confirmed his retirement. Despite the absence of any declared candidates, National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Steve Stivers claimed victory for the party in a statement: “PA-09 is a solidly red district and we look forward to electing the next Republican leader to represent it.”
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In 2015, POLITICO reported that Shuster was dating Shelley Rubino, a top lobbyist at Airlines for America, the trade group that at the time represented all the major U.S. air carriers. Airlines for America spends millions of dollars lobbying Congress on behalf of the airlines, including the House Transportation Committee — which Shuster has led since 2012. In 2014, as Shuster and his wife were divorcing, the congressman filed paperwork to disclose the relationship to his committee. Shuster said Rubino would not lobby him or his staff.
But Shuster advanced some of Airline for America's priorities. In 2014, he muscled the Travel Transparency Act through the House. The legislation allowed airlines to advertise the price of tickets without including fees and taxes. In promoting the bill, Shuster and A4A used similar verbiage. GOP leaders stood by Shuster at the time, despite some internal Republican unease regarding Shuster's personal relationship with Rubino.
POLITICO also reported in 2015 that Shuster attempted to rewrite an obscure rule regulating the number of passengers on uninspected charter boats in the U.S. Virgin Islands, where the congressman owns a timeshare. Later that month, he held a fundraiser on the island. Many of the donors said they gave him money because he worked to overturn the rule.
Finally, Shuster has campaigned relentlessly to separate the air traffic control system from the Federal Aviation Authority, putting it under the authority of a nonprofit corporate board. General aviation interests, Democrats and appropriators of all stripes opposed the plan, which stymied passage of a long-term FAA reauthorization in 2016 and again in 2017.
Shuster’s assertion that he’s now throwing his full focus behind the infrastructure push is likely the nail in the coffin for his air traffic control plan, which is already on life support since he failed to garner enough backing in the GOP-controlled House to bring it to the floor. It’s the latest in a decades-long string of disappointments for proponents of the spin-off scheme.
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The infrastructure plan will need all the help it can get from well-positioned lawmakers like Shuster. Though infrastructure spending is wildly popular with Democrats, it tends to be lower on the GOP priority list.
But so far, Democrats are recoiling from Trump’s plan. The details that have been floated so far involve no new spending, with a $200 billion down payment on the “trillion-dollar” infrastructure plan paid for by cutting other domestic programs. Proposals to make up the other $800 billion with private investment or state and local dollars have also turned off Democrats.
News of Shuster’s retirement was first reported by the Washington Examiner.
Lauren Gardner contributed to this report.
