Sasse likely to resign from Senate, putting all eyes on Ricketts

Sasse said he and his wife have been “pursued by wonderful institutions the past two years, but we’ve resisted being a finalist. This time is different because the University of Florida is different: I think Florida is the most interesting university in America right now.”

The second-term Sasse made a name for himself as a consistent Donald Trump critic in Congress as well as a reliable conservative vote. Despite his interest in academia, his resignation will be a bit of a surprise after he ran for re-election in 2020 and the potential that he could one day pursue higher office.

Sasse was one of seven GOP senators to vote to convict the former president during Trump’s second impeachment trial, after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. His resignation will create a safe GOP seat in a red state; in addition to Ricketts, Nebraska GOP Reps. Don Bacon and Mike Flood may also be in the mix for the appointment.

Ricketts said that Sasse “has one of the most conservative voting records in the Senate, and we need more conservative voices in our universities. Senator Sasse is also incredibly smart and has the experience and a clear passion for higher education.”

As far as a potential self-appointment, Ricketts spokesperson Alex Reuss said that “we aren’t going to speculate at this point. Right now, Senator Sasse is a sitting U.S. senator, and there’s no appointment to be made.”

Sasse has been interested in an academic job for quite some time, according to Republicans familiar with his future plans. Ahead of his 2020 run, there was speculation he would seek an open position to lead the University of Nebraska; prior to running for Senate, he was president of Midland University.

In an interview in February 2021 as his state party prepared to censure him over his impeachment vote (ultimately he got reprimanded), Sasse spoke at length about his views on education — and how he thought the Democrats’ coronavirus aid package missed the mark.

“I can’t use the word progressive, I guess, but I care deeply about poverty and about the fact that lower-middle class people are not being well-served by the education establishment, either at K-12 or at the higher-ed level,” Sasse said. “And so you look at this package. Is this really to help poor kids? Hell No.”

In recent years he’s maintained a relatively low profile in the Senate, while expressing frustration with the chamber and politics more broadly. Sasse has tried at times to engage his colleagues in debate on the Senate floor, and says that serving on the Senate Intelligence Committee is the best part of his job.

He and his family agonized over whether he should even run for re-election in 2020 after his first full term in the Senate “and everybody was between 51 percent and 75 percent that we thought this was our calling. So nobody was below 50-50. And yet nobody was like 95 percent.”

“This institution should be a lot more effective than it is. And the only part of every day that’s really effective is the Intel work,” he said in the 2021 interview.

In one of Sasse’s more high-profile moments this year, he sparred with Sen. Chris Murphy on the floor in March over…