After setting off heated speculation that she would run for state attorney general, Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) announced Tuesday afternoon that she will run for re-election after all.

In a statement, Speier said, “After careful consideration, I have decided that, right now, there is nothing more important than enacting strong, consumer-friendly financial regulation and seeing to it that real health care reform makes it across the finish line” in Congress.

She also said she was “humbled by the many Californians who came forward in recent days urging me to run for statewide office.”

Speier, who spent 18 years in the state Legislature before winning a 2008 special election, set tongues wagging in Northern California last week with the news that she was considering a run for attorney general. The 12th district Congresswoman has had her eye on statewide office, and a decision not to run for re-election would have set off a chain reaction among local politicians and officeholders.

Democrats, however, are not in jeopardy of losing her solidly Democratic San Francisco area seat.