{"id":99188,"date":"2017-04-20T02:17:38","date_gmt":"2017-04-20T06:17:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=99188"},"modified":"2017-04-20T02:17:38","modified_gmt":"2017-04-20T06:17:38","slug":"utah-rep-chaffetz-says-he-wont-run-for-re-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/04\/20\/utah-rep-chaffetz-says-he-wont-run-for-re-election\/","title":{"rendered":"Utah Rep. Chaffetz says he won’t run for re election"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Chaffetz,<\/a>
Chaffetz, who has been rumoured as a possible candidate for Senate or governor, said that after consulting with his family and \u201cprayerful consideration, I have decided I will not be a candidate for any office in 2018.\u201d (Photo: Jason Chaffetz\/ Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

WASHINGTON \u2013Utah Rep. Jason\u00a0Chaffetz, a Republican who doggedly investigated Hillary Clinton before the 2016 presidential election but declined to investigate President Donald Trump, abruptly announced Wednesday that he won’t run for re-election.<\/p>\n

Chaffetz, who has been rumoured as a possible candidate for Senate or governor, said that after consulting with his family and \u201cprayerful consideration, I have decided I will not be a candidate for any office in 2018.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 50-year-old\u00a0Chaffetz\u00a0had strolled to four easy re-elections in his Republican-friendly congressional district. But he was facing a surprising challenge from a Democratic newcomer who raised more than a half-million dollars by tapping into anger over\u00a0Chaffetz’s recent comment suggesting people should spend their money on health insurance instead of iPhones.<\/p>\n

Political unknown Dr. Kathryn Allen has been transformed into a liberal hero for calling out\u00a0Chaffetz\u00a0on Twitter, gaining an early boost in name recognition.<\/p>\n

Chaffetz, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, also drew fire from Democrats after saying he would not investigate Trump’s business empire, given that he had promised before the presidential election that he would investigate Clinton \u201cfor years\u201d if she was elected.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s a tough decision. I love serving in Congress, but I love my family more,\u201d\u00a0Chaffetz\u00a0said in an interview Wednesday with KSL Newsradio in Salt Lake City. \u201cI really meant it when I said I was going to get in, serve and get out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Running for Utah governor in 2020 is a possibility,\u00a0Chaffetz\u00a0said, but he’s not willing to commit one way or another.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m trying to leave the door open for possibilities down the road,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Chaffetz\u00a0led a nearly two-year investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state, continuing the inquiry even after the 2016 election. And he and other Republicans asked the Justice Department to investigate whether Clinton lied to Congress during her 2015 testimony to House Benghazi panel.<\/p>\n

In a statement on Facebook,\u00a0Chaffetz\u00a0noted that he has long advocated that public service should be for a limited time. He said that after more than 1,500 nights away from home, \u201cit is time\u201d to step aside.<\/p>\n

Chaffetz\u00a0said he has \u201cno ulterior motives\u201d and is healthy and confident he would be re-elected.<\/p>\n

House Speaker Paul Ryan tweeted that\u00a0Chaffetz\u00a0is \u201ca great defender of liberty and limited government\u201d and wished him the best.<\/p>\n

Still,\u00a0Chaffetz\u00a0has run into political turbulence. He was met by frequent, deafening boos at a February town hall as constituents grilled him on everything from investigating Trump’s tax returns to Planned Parenthood.\u00a0Chaffetz\u00a0repeatedly said, \u201chold on,\u201d and \u201cgive me a second,\u201d as audience members in a Salt Lake City suburb reacted negatively to nearly all of his statements and implored him to \u201cdo your job\u201d and investigate Trump.<\/p>\n

In a CNN interview in March,\u00a0Chaffetz\u00a0was asked how lower-income Americans would get access to health insurance if the Affordable Care Act, also known as \u201cObamacare,\u201d is repealed by congressional Republicans.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmericans have choices,\u201d he responded. \u201cMaybe rather than getting that new iPhone that they just love, and they want to go spend hundreds of dollars on that, maybe they should invest in their own health care.\u201d<\/p>\n

The remarks triggered a firestorm of criticism on social media with people comparing how many iPhones they could buy if they didn’t have to pay medical bills in the tens of thousands of dollars.\u00a0Chaffetz\u00a0later conceded on Fox News that his point about people being self-reliant didn’t come out as smoothly as it could have.<\/p>\n

Half of the voters are registered Republicans in\u00a0Chaffetz’ 3rd congressional district, which stretches from suburban Salt Lake City to desert towns in southeastern Utah and includes heavily conservative Mormon areas.\u00a0Chaffetz\u00a0won 73 per cent of the vote last fall, and Trump won the district by 24 points.<\/p>\n

While\u00a0Chaffetz\u00a0declined to investigate Trump, he did criticize a top Trump aide who promoted Ivanka Trump’s fashion line during a cable TV appearance from the White House.\u00a0Chaffetz\u00a0called Kellyanne Conway’s actions \u201cwrong, wrong, wrong\u201d and joined Cummings in asking the Office of Government Ethics to review the matter.<\/p>\n

Chris Karpowitz, co-director at Brigham Young University’s Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, said\u00a0Chaffetz\u00a0may be seeking to avoid a potentially embarrassing primary loss or close race in 2018 that could hurt his prospects for the 2020 governor’s race.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s still somewhat surprising to me,\u201d Karpowitz said. \u201cIt seems that at the first sign of trouble, he’s decided not to run.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chaffetz\u00a0is at least the seventh House Republican to resign this year or announce plans to retire, including four who left to join Trump’s Cabinet. Rep. Kristi Noem of South Dakota<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2013Utah Rep. Jason\u00a0Chaffetz, a Republican who doggedly investigated Hillary Clinton before the 2016 presidential election but declined to investigate …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":99189,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,483,17],"tags":[1786,18184,18183],"class_list":["post-99188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-politics","category-news-w","tag-election","tag-re-run","tag-utah-rep-jason-chaffetz","mauthors-matthew-daly","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99188\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}