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Republican Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby will retire at the end of his current Senate term, the fourth sitting Republican senator to announce that he will not seek reelection in 2022.
"For everything, there is a season,” Shelby said in a statement on Monday. “I am grateful to the people of Alabama who have put their trust in me for more than forty years. I have been fortunate to serve in the U.S. Senate longer than any other Alabamian."
Shelby, 86, was elected to the House in 1978 and the Senate in 1986. He switched parties from Democratic to Republican in 1994 and is the top Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee.