Republican Sen. Ben Sasse is reportedly going to resign from the chamber.
Politico reports that Sasse will take a job with the University of Florida.
Before his election, Sasse was a president of a private university in Nebraska.
Republican Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska, a staunch conservative who often criticized Donald Trump, is likely to leave the chamber to take a job at the University of Florida.
The University of Florida presidential search committee announced on Thursday that Sasse is its unanimous recommendation to lead the university. The university’s board of trustees will now consider his nomination before a final vote by the board of governors.
Sasse was previously president of Midland University in Fremont, Nebraska, a small, private Lutheran university, for five years before his election to the Senate in 2014. Before that, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from Harvard and Ph.D. from Yale.
A two-term senator, Sasse became a frequent critic of Trump throughout his time in the White House. Trump responded by calling him a “gym rat” and trying to recruit a primary challenger. Sasse just won reelection to his second term in 2020. His legacy will likely be led by the fact that he was one of seven Republicans who voted to convict Trump on impeachment charges related to inciting the January 6 Capitol riot.
Should Sasse retire soon, Gov. Pete Ricketts, a fellow Republican, would appoint his successor. Ricketts is term-limited and previously ran an unsuccessful challenge to then-Sen. Ben Nelson, the last Democrat to represent Nebraska in the chamber. Ricketts is a member of the wealthy Ricketts family that made a fortune through Ameritrade, now TD Ameritrade, a financial services company based in Omaha. The family currently owns the Chicago Cubs.
Ricketts would be viewed as a likely candidate for the job, though he has also flirted with presidential ambitions.
This is a breaking news story. Stay with Insider for updates.