Nebraska GOP Sen. Ben Sasse expected to resign to become University of Florida president

WASHINGTON – Nebraska GOP Senator Ben Sasse is expected to resign from the Senate to become president at the University of Florida, both offices announced on Thursday.

"I think Florida is the most interesting university in America right now," Sasse said in a statement after the school announced that a search committee recommended him for the job of school president.

The statement did not say exactly when Sasse would relinquish his seat in a chamber that is now split 50-50 between the two parties. The University of Florida still has to go through a formal hiring process.

Sasse, 50, in his second term in the Senate, has often lamented Donald Trump's influence on the Republican Party and frequently clashed with the 45th president. He was one of seven Republican senators last year to vote to convict the former president on impeachment charges that he helped inflame a mob to attack the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

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The timing of Sasse's departure could be significant. The Nebraska governor would appoint a replacement. Current governor Pete Ricketts is a Republican, but his office is up for grabs in the November election.

The University of Florida Board of Trustees has to approve the recommendation of Sasse as president and is scheduled to consider the appointment at a meeting on Nov. 1.

Before his election to the U.S. Senate in 2014, Sasse served as president of Midland University, a small Lutheran school in Nebraska.

In his statement extolling the Florida job, Sasse said he wants to focus on "the radical disruption of work," and how technology is changing the way people make a living. He again condemned the partisanship that has engulfed Washington, D.C., especially in the time of Trump.

"Washington partisanship," he said, "isn’t going to solve these workforce challenges – new institutions and entrepreneurial communities are going to have to spearhead this work."

Citing his interest in the University of Florida job, Sasse stressed economic themes that marked his career in politics: "It’s the most important institution in the nation’s most economically dynamic state – and its board, faculty and graduates are uniquely positioned to lead this country through an era of disruption."

Sasse is scheduled to visit the Florida campus on Monday to meet with students, faculty and others associated with the school.

The Nebraska senator would not be the first political official to become a college president.

Mitch Daniels, former governor of Indiana, is president of Purdue. Donna Shalala, who held top jobs at Hunter College and the University of Wisconsin, did a stint as health and human services secretary during the Bill Clinton administration and went on to become president of the University of Miami (Fla.).

In Florida, former House speaker and state senator John Thrasher was named president of Florida State University in Tallahassee in 2014 amid much controversy. He stepped down last year.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush congratulated Sasse on his new gig, tweeting: "Ben Sasse is brilliant, a consensus builder and will be a great leader of a great University. Ben and family, welcome to Florida!"

Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the chamber’s top Republican, praised Sasse as a “whip-smart” leader: “I am one of ninety-nine Senators who would be sorry to lose Ben as a colleague, but I trust my friend to pursue continued public service in the way that he deems best.”

The school said its search committee looked at a dozen candidates, including nine sitting presidents at major research universities, and that Sasse was the committee's unanimous choice.

During his career in the Senate, Sasse was known to be occasionally outspoken on a variety of topics. He once denounced the Houston Astros baseball team as "miserable cheaters," and said that proposals to add members to the U.S. Supreme Court would amount to "suicide bombing of two branches of government."

Sasse appeared at the Supreme Court late last month for the formal investiture ceremony welcoming Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to the bench – a somewhat surprising guest given that Sasse did not support her confirmation.

In a statement after the ceremony, Sasse acknowledged that he had “disagreements about judicial philosophy” with Jackson but that “we both love this country that allows us to respectfully wrestle through those disagreements and then still celebrate this day.”

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As for Trump, Sasse criticized the recent Republican president more for his style than his politics, saying the businessman "kisses dictators' butts" and has "flirted with white supremacists."

Trump was no more fond of the senator he called "Little Ben Sasse." He considered promoting a Republican primary challenger to Sasse in 2020, but backed off the idea at the behest of other Republican senators and wound up endorsing him instead – only to later see Sasse vote to convict him on impeachment charges.

“Like a schmuck, I went along with it," Trump told book author Maggie Haberman.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump hailed Sasse's announcement as "great news for the United States Senate ... If he knew he was going to resign so early in his term, why did he run in the first place?"

The Gainesville Sun and John Fritze contributed to this report

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Nebraska GOP Sen. Ben Sasse likely to leave for college presidency