Representative John Dingell (D-MI) was first elected to Congress in 1955 and has been there ever since. He is, according to The Hill, the longest-serving House member in history.

In a Monday interview with the Detroit News, Dingell announced that he will retire at the end of this congressional term.

It takes a special kind of person to spend nearly 60 years imposing his opinions on an often unwilling country and then, upon the announcement of his far-too-late departure from our public lives, to say “I don’t want people to say I stayed too long.”

Though an immovable supporter of Detroit’s harmful labor unions, Dingell is far from the worst member of the House. But 58 years in government is too much.

Lest you be inclined to look forward to a change in a seat which has been warmed by the same posterior since Eisenhower’s first term as president, it is expected that Dingell’s wife, Debbie, 28 years younger than the congressman and a heavy-hitter in Democratic and Detroit politics in her own right, will run for the seat. If she wins it (and she probably will if she runs), we’re likely to be stuck with another Dingell for much too long.