U.S. Rep. Royce is latest House Republican to announce retirement

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Mon, 08 Jan 2018 - 11:27 GMT

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Mon, 08 Jan 2018 - 11:27 GMT

Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Ed Royce (R-CA) arrives for a hearing with U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley on "Advancing U.S. Interests at the United Nations" in Washington, U.S., June 28, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Ed Royce (R-CA) arrives for a hearing with U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley on "Advancing U.S. Interests at the United Nations" in Washington, U.S., June 28, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

WASHINGTON - 9 January 2018: Republican U.S. Representative Ed Royce said on Monday he will not run for a 14th term to serve his southern California district, a seat seen as a key to Democratic efforts to win back control of the House of Representatives.

Royce is the latest in a wave of some 30 House Republicans who have announced they are retiring, running for another office or resigning. Democrats need to win 24 seats in the November mid-term elections to retake the majority in the House, which Republicans have controlled since 2011.

Royce, chairman of the powerful House Foreign Affairs Committee, was first elected in 1992 and has been easily re-elected since.

But political analysts have rated his district, encompassing suburbs southeast of Los Angeles, a battleground in the November elections, after voters there backed Democrat Hillary Clinton with a margin of 9 percentage points over Republican Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential race.

Royce is in his last year as committee chairman, because Republicans in Congress impose term limits on committee leadership.

In a statement, Royce said he wanted to focus his last year leading the foreign affairs panel "on the urgent threats facing our nation," which he listed as the governments in North Korea and Iran, Russian efforts to "weaponize information to fracture western democracies" and terrorist threats in Africa and Central Asia.

His announcement came the same day that Trump sent to the U.S. Senate his nomination of Royce's wife, Marie, as an assistant secretary in the U.S. State Department, which is overseen by the foreign affairs panel.

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