U.S. Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) will step down from Congress on June 1 to become CEO of the Rhode Island Foundation, the largest nonprofit in the state, the congressman announced on Tuesday.

The move bookends 28 years in public service for Cicilline, who was elected to Rhode Island’s House of Representatives in 1995 before becoming mayor of Providence — making history as the first openly gay mayor of a state capital — in 2003, and then representing Rhode Island’s 1st Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives since 2010.

The 61-year-old’s announcement likely came as a surprise to many in Washington: Cicilline, now serving his seventh term, was favored to continue winning reelection for his seat in Congress, where he has distinguished himself to such an extent that he is often described as one of his party’s rising stars.

A member of House Democratic leadership who was elected to chair the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee from 2019-2021, Cicilline serves as a senior member of the powerful House Foreign Affairs and the House Judiciary Committees and was distinguished as one of the nine Democrats selected in 2021 by then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to manage the chamber’s second impeachment of former President Donald Trump.

In Rhode Island, Cicilline’s departure will trigger an off-year special election for his replacement. While it is unclear when the state’s Gov., Dan McKee (D), will schedule the ballot, two lawmakers have announced plans to explore whether to run: State Sen. Meghan Kallman, a progressive Democrat, and Central Falls Mayor Maria Rivera.

“For more than a decade, the people of Rhode Island entrusted me with a sacred duty to represent them in Congress, and it is a responsibility I put my heart and soul into every day to make life better for the residents and families of our state,” Cicilline said in a statement.

“The chance to lead the Rhode Island Foundation was unexpected, but it is an extraordinary opportunity to have an even more direct and meaningful impact on the lives of residents of our state.”

The Rhode Island Foundation is one of the state’s biggest philanthropic organizations. With an endowment exceeding $1.3 billion, the group funds a variety of initiatives addressing issues like housing shortages and opioid addiction, often in coordination with the state government. Last week, the foundation announced plans to distribute nearly $110,000 to support Black community services.

“The same energy and commitment I brought to elected office, I will now bring as CEO of the Rhode Island Foundation,” Cicilline said in his statement, “advancing their mission to ensure all Rhode Islanders can achieve economic security, access quality, affordable healthcare, and attain the education and training that will set them on a path to prosperity.”

Dr. G. Alan Kurose, chair of the foundation’s board of directors, said in a statement: “Congressman Cicilline’s career-long fight for equity and equality at the local, national and international level, and his deep relationships within Rhode Island’s communities of color are two of the many factors that led us to this decision.”

A champion for LGBTQ and other progressive causes

Cicilline, a longtime member of the House Progressive and Congressional Equality Caucuses, became the fourth openly gay member of Congress with his first election and has since been one of the most powerful voices on LGBTQ matters before the legislature.

“Congressman Cicilline is a tireless champion for the LGBTQI+ community,” Equality Caucus Chair Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) said in a statement Tuesday. “Our community has greatly benefited from his leadership, including his work as the lead sponsor of the Equality Act, and the victories he has secured on our behalf,” he said.

Cicilline first introduced the Equality Act in 2011 and would subsequently reintroduce the bill in 2015, 2017 and 2019 — when it was finally passed by the House but languished in the then-Republican controlled U.S. Senate.

The legislation, which remains a major priority for Congressional Democrats and LGBTQ groups, would expand nondiscrimination protections in the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in areas from housing and employment to credit and jury service.

Pocan’s statement on Cicilline’s plans to step down also addressed the congressman’s work on behalf of the Equality Caucus.

“David represents his district honorably,” Pocan said. “He is a mentor to many of our LGBTQI+ co-chairs and has become a close friend and colleague of mine during our time in Congress.”

Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, the country’s largest LGBTQ advocacy group, wrote in a statement issued Tuesday that “Representative Cicilline will end his time in Congress with an unparalleled track record of advancing LGBTQ+ rights in our nation.” 

Robinson noted the congressman “has been a driving force in introducing and rallying support for the desperately needed Equality Act” as well as for the Respect for Marriage Act — a landmark bill signed into law at the end of last year that protects same-sex and interracial couples in the event that the U.S. Supreme Court should revoke or weaken their constitutional rights to marry.

LGBTQ Victory Fund & Institute President and former Houston Mayor Annise Parker, who was also among the first openly-LGBTQ mayors of a major American city, said in a statement that Cicilline “has consistently gone to bat for pro-LGBTQ legislation, stood up against homophobic and transphobic policies and passed laws to make our country more equitable for all.”

“From speeches on the House floor to conversations with colleagues behind closed doors, David changed the hearts and minds of folks on both sides of the aisle – and our entire community is better because of it,” Parker said, adding that the congressman “will go down as one of the most groundbreaking LGBTQ leaders in American history.”

Other legislation impacting LGBTQ Americans that was supported by Cicilline includes a bill that he co-sponsored in 2011 to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, the Clinton-era law banning same-sex marriage, and another that he co-sponsored in 2018, the Gay and Trans Panic Defense Prohibition Act, which would prohibit courts that are adjudicating the assaults or murders of LGBTQ people from accepting, as mitigating or exculpatory factors, a defendant’s claim that he was driven to violence by unwanted sexual advances from the victim.

Cicilline also used his platform to draw attention to non-legislative matters impacting the LGBTQ community, particularly during the Trump administration, during which time the congressman became vocal advocate for LGBTQ migrants in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and a vocal critic of the State Department’s decision to deny or revoke diplomatic visas that were issued to unmarried same-sex partners of foreign diplomats.

Cicilline has also advocated for other causes and legislation championed by progressive Democrats including: strengthening gun control laws, an issue for which in 2016 he organized a 26-hour sit-in with House members including the late-U.S. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), in support of reproductive freedom, including the right to safe and legal abortions.

A major voice in consumer rights, economic policy and foreign affairs

Last year, Roll Call proclaimed that Cicilline “got Congress to care about antitrust again,” having motivated U.S. lawmakers, including through his role as chair of the Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on antitrust, to meet the moment amid the one-in-a-generation sea change in competition policy that began to take shape a few years ago.

No other U.S. lawmaker, with the possible exception of U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on antitrust and authored a book on the subject in 2021, has exerted more influence over Congress’ efforts to strengthen enforcement of the antitrust laws.

Cicilline and other advocates for antitrust reform argue that with more vigorous enforcement, the government can better moderate the outsize power and influence exerted by the dominant tech platform companies while providing relief for American consumers who suffer higher prices for goods and poorer quality for services as a result of the government’s failure to challenge anticompetitive mergers — a gun-shy approach that has persisted since the 1980s.

Last week, Cicilline challenged the exercise of economic power that harms the integrity of America’s democratic elections, introducing legislation with U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) that would impose additional disclosure requirements for corporations, labor organizations, and super PACs to fight the flow of dark money into politics.

“Great economic power should not translate into outsized political power,” he said.

On the Foreign Affairs Committee, Cicilline was an influential voice on matters that tend to attract comparably more controversy, such as America’s military footprint overseas. The congressman pushed back against the Obama administration’s proposal for intervention in Syria in 2013, and against Trump’s meeting with Kim Jong-Un in 2018, warning that it would elevate the standing of North Korea’s supreme leader in the international community.