WASHINGTON — Sen. Trent Lott, a 35-year Capitol Hill veteran who staged a political comeback after losing his Senate leadership post because of racially insensitive remarks, plans to resign from office before the year is out.
With his decision, the Senate’s No. 2 Republican will avoid a new ethics rule that takes effect by the end of the year, allowing him to pursue a lucrative lobbying job after a year’s wait rather than after two years.
The Mississippi senator is the latest veteran Republican lawmaker, including former House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois, to plan to depart Congress after the party lost its majority to Democrats in the 2006 election. He is the sixth GOP senator to announce plans to leave the narrowly divided chamber.
“One of the things that troubles me now is the great difficulty in passing needed legislation,” Lott said Monday in Pascagoula, Miss.
Lott, who only last year won re-election, said he has made no decision on his post-congressional career.
“I don’t know what the future holds for us,” he said. “A lot of options, hopefully, will be available.”
But the timing of his departure fueled speculation that Lott, 66, was leaving to join the parade of former lawmakers who turn to lobbying to cash in on their experience and connections.
An ethics bill passed by Congress and signed by President Bush this year doubles, to two years, the “cooling off” period that senators must wait out after leaving Capitol Hill before they can lobby their former colleagues.
House members’ waiting period is one year.
Lott said he considered retiring in 2006 but decided to run because his state was struggling to recover from Hurricane Katrina and would need federal help. Lott’s Pascagoula home was destroyed in the 2005 storm.
The GOP departures have been a blow to Republican hopes of regaining their majority. With Lott’s departure, the GOP must defend 23 seats next year compared with 12 for Democrats.
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour said that once Lott resigns, he will appoint a successor to serve until an election is held next year.
Lott was forced out as Senate Republican leader in December 2002 after saying, during a 100th-birthday celebration for Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., that the country might have been better off had the then-segregationist been elected president in 1948.
Lott apologized repeatedly for what he termed “a poor choice of words” during a lighthearted celebration. He insisted he had not meant to endorse segregation.
