Alexander to leave GOP Senate post; Thune seeks slot

Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander says he will step down from his position in the Republican leadership next year, saying he wants to focus his time on making the Senate a “more effective institution.”

Alexander, a moderate in his second term, serves as the chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, guiding policy and strategy for a team of Republicans that has moved increasingly to the right. In remarks on the floor on Tuesday, he suggested that he said he was stepping down after four years in the post because he was out of sync with the hyper-partisanship and high-intensity media environment that has infiltrated, and some say hobbled, the Senate.

“Stepping down from leadership will liberate me to spend more time working for results on the issues I care the most about,” he said. “I want to do more to make the Senate a more effective place to address serious issues.”

Alexander said he will run for reelection in 2014 but that he has no plans to run for leadership again. In a letter to senators, he said he would step down in January. Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, a rising conservative often discussed as a future presidential contender, immediately announced a bid for the post.

“America is at a crossroads with record deficits and crippling debt, high unemployment, and growing economic uncertainty,” Thune said in a statement. “Now more than ever it is crucial for Republicans to communicate a clear vision to the American people.”

Alexander is known as a lawmaker with strong bipartisan relationships and a measured demeanor. In his remarks, he pushed back against those who view his willingness to work with Democrats as a compromise of conservative principles.

“I’m a very Republican Republican. I grew up in the mountain of Tennessee and still live in a congressional district that’s never elected a Democrat to Congress since Abraham Lincoln was president of the United States,” he said. “If I could get a 100 % Republican solution to any of our legislative issues, I would do it in a minute. But I know that Senate usually requires 60 votes for a solution on serious issues, and we simply can’t get that with only Republican votes.”

Alexander said he planned to be more aggressive on key issues, not less. He said the problem was not incivility in the Senate, but a media culture that doesn’t support good governing.

“But if you will notice carefully, most of the people you hear shouting at one another on television and radio or on the Internet have never been elected to anything,” he said. “It would help if we in the Senate knew each other better across party lines. But to suggest that we should be more timid in debating the biggest issue before the American people would ignore the function of the Senate and would ignore our history.”

Several senators came to the floor to listen Alexander’s remarks. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, (R-Ky.) noted that “this is not a eulogy” and said he was relieved to hear the Alexander was running for reelection.

“I can’t think of anybody who’s done more things well,” he said.