Jenny Sanford Won’t Running For Congress Against Ex-Husband

Jenny Sanford will not run for Congress, avoiding a potential matchup against her cheating ex-husband, former South Carolina governor Mark Sanford.

Former first Lady Jenny Sanford announced Monday that she didn’t intend to run for South Carolina’s 1st District Congressional seat. Instead, she told reporters that she intends to focus on being a mother, a job she said is more rewarding and important than going to Congress, The Post and Courier reported.

“I have no interest in running for Congress,” Sanford told reporters, according to the AP. “My job as mom right now is much more important, much more rewarding and much more productive.”

Jenny Sanford also had a dig for the current Congress, saying she wouldn’t want to serve “in a dysfunctional body under John Boehner.”

The seat was left empty after Gov. Nikki Haley appointed former Representative Tim Scott to a vacant Senate seat left empty when Jim DeMint retired. That seat brought some national attention when fans of Stephen Colbert started a campaign to get the comedy host appointed to the position.

The ex-husband of Jenny Sanford, disgraced ex-Gov. Mark Sanford, is considered to be leaning toward entering the race for the seat he once held before becoming governor in 2003. Had Jenny chose to run as well, it would have set up a Sanford v. Sanford primary race.

Mark Sanford disappeared from the capital for days in 2009, first saying he was taking time to hike along the Appalachian Trail but later admitting that he was having an affair on Jenny Sanford with an Argentine woman. With the race for the 1st District seat, Sanford is hoping to make a political comeback, Yahoo! News reported.