Tancredo will not seek reelection

Illegal-immigration hawk Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) said he will not seek another term in Congress in 2008, regardless of his fate in the presidential race.

Tancredo’s exit, first reported by Denver’s Rocky Mountain News on Sunday night, adds another retirement to a growing list of GOP open seats that currently stands at more than a dozen.

{mosads}Tancredo said that he has done all he can do in the House and that he was satisfied with his effort to bring the immigration issue to the forefront.

“I have helped make it that way, I think — at least, I hope,” Tancredo said on Fox News on Monday morning. “And I’m going to continue to do that, of course, during our discussions in the campaign for president.”

Tancredo has also suggested that he might run for freshman Sen. Ken Salazar’s (D-Colo.) seat in 2010.

His district is conservative, and it gave President Bush 60 percent of the vote in 2004. But the state has trended toward Democrats in recent years.

Potential Republican candidates to take his seat include former Lt. Gov. Jane Norton; state Rep. David Balmer; state Sen. Ted Harvey; state Sen. Tom Wiens; and Will Armstrong, the son of former senator and state GOP icon Bill Armstrong.

A Democratic official said that the party is still evaluating the district and that it was too early to be talking about potential candidates. The official said the ability of previous Democratic candidates to raise money is encouraging.

Tancredo said there are plenty of candidates to take up the anti-illegal immigration mantle in the House. The top prospect appears to be Rep. Brian Bilbray (R-Calif.), who succeeded Tancredo as chairman of the Immigration Reform Caucus in February.

“There are now a lot of people in the House of Representatives that I can hand that baton to and do so with the knowledge that they will fight for this issue,” Tancredo said on Fox. “It’s a different world.”