When voters in Missouri’s 3rd Congressional District go to the polls later this year, they will choose a new representative after Republican Blaine Luetkemeyer announced Jan. 4 that he will not seek a ninth two-year term.
The next day state Sen. Mary Elizabeth Coleman, a Republican from Arnold, announced she will run for the seat, which Luetkemeyer has held since 2009.
Arnold is in Missouri’s 8th Congressional District.
After redistricting prior to the 2022 election, the 3rd Congressional district now covers the western half of Jefferson County and all or parts of Boone, Callaway, Camden, Cole, Cooper, Gasconade, Maries, Miller, Montgomery, Moniteau, Osage, St. Charles, Warren and Washington counties.
“It has been an honor to serve the great people of the 3rd Congressional District and state of Missouri these past several years,” Luetkemeyer said in a written statement. “However, after a lot of thoughtful discussion with my family, I have decided to not file for re-election and retire at the end of my term in December.”
Coleman, 42, was elected to the District 22 seat in the state Senate in 2022 after serving three terms in the state House of Representatives.
“I’m running for Congress because we need to secure the southern border and put a stop to the endless flow of illegal immigration,” she said in a written statement. “We need to protect and defend human life; we need to stand up for our daughters and the girls of our state by protecting women’s sports; and we need to get back to the economic prosperity we had under President Trump by reversing Bidenomics, which has inflated the price of everything for Missouri families.”
Coleman, an attorney, and her husband, Christopher, have six children.
“I love my state and my country and we need more unwavering conservatives willing to step up and fight against the radical left who are seeking to impose their socialist ideology on Missourians,” she said.
Luetkemeyer, 71, a Republican from St. Elizabeth, also served in the Missouri House of Representatives from 1998 to 2004, and before his election to Congress, he was Missouri’s director of tourism.
Currently, he is on the House Financial Services Committee as chairman of the Subcommittee on National Security, Illicit Finance and International Financial Institutions, and he is on the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party and the House Small Business Committee.
Luetkemeyer cited a housing reform law he worked on with Rep. Emmanuel Cleaver II, a Democrat from the Kansas City area, as a career highlight, along with a law addressing fraud related to COVID relief programs and legislation honoring fallen service members from his district.
He said after he finishes his final term at the end of 2024, he’s looking forward to spending more time with his wife, three children and seven grandchildren.
Candidate filing for the August primary election runs from Feb. 27 through March 26.
U.S. representatives are paid $174,000 a year.