U.S. congressional representative Michael Oxley, of Sarbanes-Oxley Act fame, announced that he will not seek re-election in 2006.

Oxley declared that he will retire from Congress at the end of his current term, completing 25 years of service and a total of 33 years in elected office. As chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, the corporate reform legislation passed by Congress in the wake of major accounting scandals, known as SOX, bears his name.

“In his six years as chairman, congressman Oxley oversaw an industry making dramatic progress in technology and modernization,” said Marc Lackritz, president of the U.S. Securities Industry Association today in response to the news. “He had an unshakable commitment to maintaining the pre-eminence of our capital markets and the highest standards for our industry.”

Oxley’s committee held the first hearing on the collapse of the Enron Corporation, and within months helped produce SOX. Many of the SOX reforms have, in turn, been imitated by Canadian regulators.

“What the law really does is enshrine the principles of honesty and accountability that I learned growing up in Ohio,” said Oxley. “You never get in trouble by doing the right thing.”

Oxley’s committee also passed the anti-terrorist financing provisions; identity theft protections; and a bill improving electronic payment systems.

He also counts himself as a proud supporter of the Reagan Revolution. His first major vote in Congress was on the Reagan tax cuts of 1981. “President Reagan gave us the formula for economic growth,” Oxley said. “It’s not big government. It’s about keeping taxes low, making sure employers are competitive, and being strong as a nation.”

Oxley notes that he also had a hand in leading U.S. stock exchanges to adopt decimalization, and played a role in the passage of financial services modernization legislation that allows banks, securities firms, and insurance companies to compete with each other for the consumer’s business.