Senator Lamar Alexander on not seeking 2020 re-election: 'It's time'

My statement on the 2020 Senate election. https://t.co/RUv8Biqdgd pic.twitter.com/W9U6OvmH75

— Sen. Lamar Alexander (@SenAlexander) December 17, 2018

NASHVILLE - He's at the height of his power in Washington and been praised by President Donald Trump, but three-term Republican U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee says "it's time" for him to leave office in two years.

The 78-year-old former two-term governor, U.S. Education secretary and one-time University of Tennessee president shook up the state's political universe Monday, announcing he won't seek re-election to the Senate seat he's held since 2003.

That's opened the floodgates of ambition here with term-limited Republican Gov. Bill Haslam, who leaves office in January, among those now weighing a 2020 race. It's also given Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke and Republican U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann something to think about.

Alexander said he made the decision in August during a fishing trip to Canada, but figured he'd sit on it for a while to make sure. Supporters just last week had leaked an Alexander campaign poll showing he had support from nearly two thirds of Republicans surveyed.

"I was thinking about what to do and realized I'd served two terms as governor, three as senator, and nobody else had done that" in Tennessee history, the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee said in an interview after his announcement.

"And I thought, well, people had been very generous with me and that's enough even though I feel I'm doing my job better than I ever have," Alexander said. "I thought it was time for somebody else to have a turn. I guess everything has a season and has to come to an end. Plus, I like the idea of leaving when I'm batting .400 instead of some other way."

He said he planned to announce his decision several weeks ago but held off after the death of former President George H.W. Bush, who had appointed Alexander as education secretary.

It comes after a 2018 election cycle in which Republican Sen. Bob Corker of Chattanooga chose not to seek re-election, spurring an epic battle between Republican Marsha Blackburn and former governor and Democrat Phil Bredesen, which Blackburn won.

Calling Alexander "one of the finest statesmen our state has ever seen," Corker said in a statement that "Lamar will leave behind a remarkable legacy. I know he will press through the next two years with great vigor, and I look forward to all he will accomplish on behalf of Tennesseans as he completes his service in Washington."

Alexander, a Maryville, Tennessee native, served as governor from 1978 to 1987. He is the only Tennessean ever popularly elected both governor and senator. His 2008 general election vote total of 1,579,477 is the largest ever received by a statewide candidate.

He is chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and of the Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee,

This year, he authored and in October passed a bill addressing the nation's opioid epidemic. Trump, who has famously feuded with Corker, happily signed the legislation into law, calling it "the single largest bill to combat a drug crisis in the history of our country."

In 2016, Alexander wrote the "21st Century Cures Act," which is designed to help accelerate medical product development and bring new innovations and advances faster and more efficiently to patients who need them. It provided $6.3 billion in funding, mostly for the National Institutes of Health.

And in 2015 he authored the "Every Student Succeeds Act," intended to fix the "No Child Left Behind" law. President Barack Obama called the new law "a Christmas miracle," and The Wall Street Journal called it the "largest devolution of federal control to the states in a quarter century."

Alexander cites all three as some of his major Senate accomplishments.

As chairman of the Energy and Water Development Appropriations subcommittee, Alexander provided four years of record funding for national laboratories, supercomputing and waterways, including restarting work on replacing the Chickamauga Lock. Helping Oak Ridge National Laboratory has been a labor of love for the senator, who's been helped by Fleischmann, an appropriator in the House.

"The great state of Tennessee has been generous to the U.S. Senate over the years," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said in a statement. "A number of Tennessee senators from both parties have enriched this institution through especially distinguished service and built reputations as national leaders.

"And," McConnell added, "no one embodies this legacy better than Lamar. While I'm sure he will accomplish even more over the next two years, Lamar is already one of the most consequential senators on domestic policy in memory."

As Tennessee governor, Alexander pushed education reform, eventually passing his "Better Schools" program that sought to standardize basic education in the state's public schools and was an early harbinger of public education reform efforts across the country. A major and controversial part of his plan was the "Master Teachers" or the "Career Ladder" program that called for providing the state's top teachers with merit pay.

He also points to helping usher in Tennessee's move into auto manufacturing, landing a Nissan plant for Smyrna in the early 1980s and later GM's Saturn plant in Spring Hill.

Alexander, an attorney, cut his political teeth back in 1966, helping get Republican Howard Baker Jr. elected to the Senate, the first Republican to win the office. After working as an aide in the Nixon White House, he was back in Tennessee, helping engineer Republican Winfield Dunn's 1970 victory in the governor's race.

Four years later, Alexander was off and running for governor himself. He lost in the post-Watergate scandal landslide. But he came back in 1978 and won the governor's mansion.

Like his mentor Baker, Alexander has fit in the mold of Tennessee Republicans' moderate-to-conservative wing, seeking to work across the aisle to get things done.

Still, many Democrats in the 1980s and early 1990s loathed him. These days, the heat Alexander gets mostly comes from the GOP's right wing. In 2014, then-state Rep. Joe Carr challenged Alexander in the GOP primary. Alexander won with 50 percent but Carr, who had little money, still grabbed 40 percent of the vote.

Alexander likely would have been challenged in the 2020 GOP primary, and with an uncertain 2020 political environment ambitious Democrats might have challenged him, as well.

"I've never based a decision about running for election on whether I could win or not," Alexander said of deciding not to run in 2020. "If I had, I'd never have been elected to anything."

He said he called the president on Sunday to tell him, but "before I could tell him anything, he said, 'Marsha [Blackburn], that worked out fine. Now let's talk about you serving another 20 years.'"

After explaining to Trump he was calling to tell him he wasn't seeking re-election, the president asked, "Why would you do that?" Alexander said. After further explanation, Trump said "he understood."

The Senate has become increasingly polarized.

"I wouldn't take anything for granted, but I think I would have been in pretty good shape," Alexander said.

Contact Andy Sher at asher@timesfreepress.com or 615-255-0550. Follow on Twitter @AndySher1.