ALEXANDRIA, Va. — U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.), a six-term congressman representing the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Y-12 National Security Complex, said he does not want to succeed Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) in the Senate.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Fleischmann, 56, said during a presentation last week at the National Cleanup Workshop, an annual gathering of Department of Energy contractors here. “I’m staying in the House. I’m not running for the Senate.”
Fleischmann’s Tennessee third district is the center of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) uranium processing work, churning out uranium-fueled secondary stages for nuclear-weapons refurbishments. The site will be busy with the work for decades, under the 30-year nuclear-modernization and maintenance effort started in 2016.
In Congress since 2011, Fleischman now serves on the House Appropriations Committee and its energy and water subcommittee, where he helps draft the first versions of DOE’s annual spending bill.
After Alexander (R-Tenn.) announced in December he would not seek re-election in 2020, Fleischmann was one of many GOP names floated as a possible successor. In July, President Donald Trump tweeted his support for Tennessee native Bill Hagerty, the administration’s ambassador to Japan, to succeed Alexander. The 60-year old Hagerty resigned his ambassador post in late July and formally launched his campaign earlier this month, local media reported.
Trump’s backing makes Hagerty look like a strong favorite for the GOP nomination, particularly since former Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam has announced he will not run, Roll Call reported recently. Phil Bredesen, 75, a former governor and an unsuccessful candidate for Senate in 2018, has been regularly mentioned as the potential Democratic Party nominee for the seat in deep-red Tennessee.
The 79-year-old Alexander, himself a former Tennessee governor, has served in the Senate since 2003. He chairs the Senate Appropriations energy and water subcommittee, which drafts the upper chamber’s annual budget bill for DOE and the NNSA. Alexander will hold the gavel for at least one more DOE budget cycle: the one that determines the agency’s 2021 budget.
As Fleischmann stays put in the people’s house, another familiar nuclear congressman, Rep. Ben Ray Luján, plans to depart the lower chamber and run for the Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) after the 2020 general election.
Luján, who declared his candidacy in April, has since 2009 represented 3rd Congressional District that includes the Los Alamos National Laboratory. He faces stiff competition for Udall’s seat in true-Blue New Mexico.
So far, 10 Democrats have already filed to run in a June 2020 primary to replace Luján, including: New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver, 43; and former CIA officer Valerie Plame, 56. Plame left the intelligence agency and received national attention after her identity was disclosed by syndicated columnist Robert Novak in 2003.
Republican Gavin Clarkson, 50, an unsuccessful candidate for New Mexico secretary of state in 2018 and a former Interior Department official in the Trump administration, has also declared his candidacy for Udall’s seat. Republican Alexis Johnson has also registered to seek the GOP nomination for the soon-to-be-vacant seat.
