Rehberg won't run for House again

HELENA — Former U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., said Monday he has decided not to run for his old House seat or any other office in 2014.

Rehberg said he wants to “focus on family, friends and business for awhile,” he said in a text message.

On Jan. 2, Rehberg told reporters he had not ruled out running for the House this year.

Rehberg said then that people had begun contacting him and asking him to consider running for the seat he had held for 12 years. He didn’t seek re-election to the House in 2012 to make an unsuccessful race for the Senate in 2012.

“I think I have a lot to offer the people,” he said then. “I could hit the ground running to work on all the problems that exist that we warned the public about like Obamacare and the direction of Washington.”

He said that he, his wife and a relative have opened a Burger King in Billings that employs 43 people, and they hope to build three more across the state this year.

Rehberg, 58, has been a prominent figure in Montana politics for most of four decades, starting as a legislator in the 1980s, a lieutenant governor under two governors in the 1990s and as the state’s lone congressman from 2001-2013. He managed challenger Conrad Burns’ successful 1988 campaign for the U.S. Senate, but lost his two Senate bids against Democratic incumbents, one to Sen. Max Baucus in 1996 and the other to Sen. Jon Tester in 2012.

Four Republicans and one Democrat already have announced they are running for the U.S. House seat. Two more Republicans have said they are likely to enter the race in the coming weeks.

Distributed by MCT Information Services