Ileana Ros-Lehtinen To Retire In 2018, Florida Republican Was First Hispanic Woman To Serve In Congress

Florida Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the first Cuban-American elected to Congress, will retire in 2018 at the end of her current term after 38 years in public service. Her unexpected retirement was first reported Sunday by Miami Herald and Ros-Lehtinen confirmed the news later, in a statement to the paper Sunday afternoon.

Ros-Lehtinen, 64, who was first elected in 1989 told the Miami Herald during a phone interview on Sunday: "It's been such a delight and a high honor to serve our community for so many years and help constituents every day of the week. ... We just said, 'It's time to take a new step'."

The Republican congresswoman said she was confident that if she would have run again in 2018, she could have won re-election despite the evolving political climate in her district.

“There is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that I would not only win in this election, but I would win by a greater percentage,” Ros-Lehtinen told the Herald during her phone interview referring to the 2018 elections.

"The most difficult challenge is not to simply keep winning elections; but rather the more difficult challenge is to not let the ability to win define my seasons. We all know, or should know, that winning isn’t everything," she wrote in a separate statement to the Herald. "My seasons are defined, instead, by seeking out new challenges, being there as our grandchildren grow up, interacting with and influencing public issues in new and exciting ways,” she added.

Ros-Lehtinen was elected to Florida’s redrawn 27th district last November that covers much of southeast Miami-Dade County, which was won by Democrat Hillary Clinton with more than 20 percentage points over President Donald Trump in the 2016 election. According to the Herald, this win was Clinton's largest margin of victory of any Republican-held district in the country. However, Ros-Lehtinen was able to win her seat by 10 percentage points in what appeared to be her closest re-election in years.

Since Trump took office, Ros-Lehtinen has been among the president's most vocal Republican critics in Congress. She said she did not vote for Trump last year and has disagreed with the president on budget cuts, immigration, transgender rights, and disagreed with House Republicans on healthcare.

“I've served under all kinds of different dynamics in all these years that I've been in office here. Though I don't agree with many, if not most, positions of President Trump,” she said.

Ros-Lehtinen was born in Havana and her family fled the Fidel Castro regime in Cuba when she was 8-years-old. She was also a fierce critic of Cuban politics and was given the nickname "the big bad wolf" by Fidel Castro.

In 2012, she became the first ever Republican in Congress to openly back equality in marriage. She has a transgender son, who is also an activist. Ros-Lehtinen is known for her support for LGBT and gay rights. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio had worked in her office as an intern in the 1990s when she was serving in the Florida House of Representatives and the Florida Senate. She was the first Hispanic woman to serve there before serving in the U.S. House of Representatives. She currently heads the subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa, and also oversees the intelligence committee.