Republican members of Congress have been falling like dominos across the table. After a slew of bad news has flown out of Florida, the Parkland High School shooting massacre, and Donald Trump trying to escape the special counsel, Robert Mueller’s, Russia investigation, like many of his fellow Republicans, U.S. Rep. Tom Rooney has decided to quit national politics after a decade of service.
Perhaps, he saw the writing on the wall that the Democrats would take the House in the 2018 election. He did take money from the NRA. Certainly, Trump would not be able to campaign for his fellow GOP members with his own increasingly poor track record.
Rooney currently represents Florida’s 17th congressional district in south-central Florida. He told POLITICO that it was time to:
‘”Hang em up” as my old football coach used to say.’
Rooney has approximately 768,000 in his district which stretches from eastern Tampa Bay to the western shores of Lake Okeechobee. The district voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election, Republican Mitt Romney in 2012, and Democratic Barack Obama in 2008.
In his statement to Patch.com regarding the legislation, Rooney said it had become clear lawmakers had much work to do:
‘As lawmakers, people expect us to act to stop this needless bloodshed and violence. Congress can – and should – immediately work in a bipartisan way to provide ample federal resources to help make sure that no one wishing to commit these mass atrocities can even step foot inside a school.’
He said Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School had a school resource officer on campus but that it was “obvious” it needed more, according to Patch.com.
‘That’s why I am requesting increased federal funding for the federal COPS Hiring Program to make sure state and local law enforcement entities can put school resource officers in every corner of every school.’
Featured Image via Getty Images/Spencer Platt.
