President Elect Obama To Resign Senate Seat Sunday

It is rare for a sitting Senator to become President, and it makes for some unusual occurrences. President-elect Barack Obama will be stepping down from his Senate seat on Sunday to devote his full time to preparing for assuming the White House on January 20.

This also means that Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich gets to choose who will replace Obama in the Senate.

All political eyes in Illinois are on Gov. Rod Blagojevich to see who he will select to replace Obama for the two years remaining in his term. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) has been the most overt in positioning himself, but other frontrunners include Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) and Illinois Veterans Affairs Chief Tammy Duckworth, who Obama appeared with on Veterans Day.

Blagojevich is under no legal deadline to select an Obama replacement. It's been a long time since an Illinois governor had this juicy a plum to give away: the last Senate vacancy was in 1969 when Ralph Tyler Smith was selected by then Gov. Richard Ogilvie to fill the slot left vacant by the death of Sen. Everett Dirksen.

Obama needs to spend all the time he can preparing for his new office and is going to need all the luck he can possibly muster.