Lautenberg Says He\'ll Step Down

Lautenberg, Oldest Member of Senate, Will Step Down

Senator Frank R. Lautenberg of New Jersey will retire rather than seek a sixth term next year, he said on Thursday.

Senator Frank Lautenberg spoke with reporters after a Democratic policy luncheon in January.

Mr. Lautenberg, at 89 the oldest member of the Senate, was to officially announce his decision Friday in Paterson, where he grew up the son of poor immigrant parents.

“This is not the end of anything, but rather the beginning of a two-year mission to pass new gun safety laws, protect children from toxic chemicals, and create more opportunities for working families in New Jersey,” he said in a statement. “While I may not be seeking re-election, there is plenty of work to do before the end of this term, and I’m going to keep fighting as hard as ever for the people of New Jersey in the U.S. Senate.”

Mr. Lautenberg, a Democrat who earned his fortune as a founder of the huge payroll firm Automatic Data Processing, had left the Senate once before, in 2001, but hated retirement so much that he jumped at the chance to return when the state’s Democratic Party was looking for someone to replace Senator Robert Torricelli, facing an ethics investigation, on the ballot in 2002.

This time, Mr. Lautenberg’s decision has been on-again-off-again for several months. His office was initially considering announcing it at the annual dinner of the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce in Washington in January, but it had been complicated by Mayor Cory A. Booker of Newark, a Democrat who announced in December that he would seek the Senate seat â€" whether or not Mr. Lautenberg retired.

Mr. Lautenberg’s aides had been telling Mr. Booker that the senator was leaning toward retirement and that the decision was coming soon. When Mr. Booker declared his candidacy anyway, Mr. Lautenberg was openly upset, so much that the senator began talking about running again.

His family was pressing for his retirement, but Mr. Lautenberg was reluctant to step away from his work in Washington, particularly when the Senate historically had members who worked well into old age. Mr. Lautenberg counts as his biggest achievement the ban on smoking on airplanes, which set off the process in which many governments ultimately banned smoking in restaurants and other public spaces. He also led battles to lower the legal blood-alcohol limit to 0.08 percent; to raise the drinking age to 21; and to force companies to disclose what chemicals they emit into the air and the water.