Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), told a local news radio show in Texas that she plans to resign her Senate seat in October or November in order to focus full-time on her campaign for Governor in 2010.
Hutchison said she’ll remain in the Senate long enough to fight President Obama on health care and cap-and-trade. “I’m trying to finish those things in a responsible way and then I’m coming home to try to give leadership to Texas,” said Hutchison.
This is in fact a widely expected move, and had been openly discussed by her fellow Texas Senator, NRSC chairman John Cornyn.
A resignation would be immediately filled through an interim appointment by Republican Gov. Rick Perry — whom Hutchison is challenging in the GOP primary — and there would then be an expedited special election in May 2010. The Republicans would be initially favored due to the state’s natural partisan bent, but the race would likely attract a lot of money from both national parties, simultaneously fighting over a single Senate seat and the whole national political narrative going into the mid-terms.
