Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) is retiring.   He will be replaced by Gary Peters.

David Cay Johnston in the Fall 2014 issue of The American Prospect, The Legacy of Carl Levin:

For 15 years, Senator Carl Levin has taught Americans how our tax system really works. Hearings by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI), which he heads, have exposed modern accounting alchemy that turns the black ink of domestic profits into the red ink of tax-deductible expenses. Levin has shown how profits can be shipped tax-free to the Cayman Islands and, amazingly, how Apple figured out that profits booked in Ireland could be hidden from tax authorities of both Ireland and the United States in a cloak of invisibility. He exposed tax favors that were supposed to create jobs but ended up destroying them. He made Swiss bankers who solicited tax evasion on American soil squirm, destroying their claims that criminal conduct was the work of rogue bankers.

The senior senator from Michigan revealed that Goldman Sachs sold clients securities that it then bet would fail, eliciting eye-opening testimony from its CEO, Lloyd Blankfein, who saw nothing wrong with this. Over the decades, Levin has exposed wasteful, and sometimes corrupt, military contracting arrangements. His mind is even keen enough to attack regulations that strangle business while supporting stronger environmental and trade regulations that improve public health and create jobs.

Now at age 80, after 36 years in Washington, Levin is retiring… Pending retirement makes it a good time to assess his career, including accomplishments that few expected in January of 1979, when he came to Washington as a middle-aged lawyer from Detroit elected only because the popular incumbent flubbed his re-election bid. Now, with Levin as the last of the 20 freshman senators of that class, his departure raises the question of who will champion tax fairness in the Senate, and who will have the skill to win support for hard-hitting investigations of bad business practices with such decency that Republican senators like John McCain and Tom Coburn praise the reports.

Who will possess the personal integrity, never touched by the slightest hint of scandal, along with the backbone and brains to take on the most powerful institutions in America on behalf of not just the little guy, but of a healthier republic?

That’s an actual question not a rhetorical question.  It’s not clear who, if anyone, is there to step in to the role Levin took on.

Levin’s guidance to those considering a run for public office:

I would tell my grandchildren to first have an occupation they would be very happy in if they don’t win or, if they do win the election, that they can fall back on so they can follow the fiduciary path, which I believe is the right path for an elected official, which is to vote for what they think is best for their community. You have to be able to vote for what you think is best, even if it’s unpopular, if you want to be a fiduciary and truly represent the interests of your community and not yourself.

I would urge them to listen to their constituents, but also to the opposition, because the opposition deserves to be heard before decisions are made. I would urge them to learn how to compromise because that is the only way something gets done in a place like the Senate. I would urge them not just to listen to the opposition and to consider their arguments, but if they end up taking a position in prevailing I would urge them to give the other guy some ground to stand on.