VP-Elect to Resign Senate Seat Monday  01/17 09:32

   

   WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) -- Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will resign her 
Senate seat on Monday, two days before she and President-elect Joe Biden are 
inaugurated.

   Aides to the California Democrat confirmed the timing and said Gov. Gavin 
Newsom was aware of her decision, clearing the way for him to appoint fellow 
Democrat Alex Padilla, now California's secretary of state, to serve the final 
two years of Harris' term.

   Padilla will be the first Latino senator from California, where about 40% of 
residents are Hispanic. Newsom announced his choice in December, following 
intense lobbying for the rare Senate vacancy from the nation's most populous 
state.

   Harris will give no farewell Senate floor speech. The Senate is not 
scheduled to reconvene until Tuesday, the eve of Inauguration Day.

   Padilla's arrival, along with Harris becoming the Senate's presiding officer 
when she's sworn-in as vice president, is part of Democrats' upcoming Senate 
majority. But the party still needs Sens.-elect Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock 
of Georgia to be certified as victors in their Jan. 5 elections and then be 
sworn in.

   Harris will be the first Black woman and first woman of South Asian descent 
to serve as vice president, but her Senate departure leaves the chamber's 
roster without a Black woman. Harris was just the second Black woman senator, 
winning her California election 17 years after Democrat Carol Moseley Braun 
finished a single term representing Illinois.

   Among many potential successors to Harris, Newsom passed over at least two 
prominent Black women, U.S. Reps. Karen Bass and Barbara Lee. Bass also was 
among Biden's finalists for running mate.

   Democrats were in the minority during Harris' four years on Capitol Hill. 
Perhaps her biggest mark came as a fierce questioner of judicial nominees and 
other witnesses as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

   Harris was viewed as a future presidential candidate almost immediately upon 
joining the Senate in 2017. She announced her White House bid in January 2019 
but dropped out the subsequent December after a lackluster campaign and before 
the ballots were cast in Iowa's first-in-the-nation caucuses. Biden, himself a 
former senator, invited her to join the national ticket in August.

   The wins by Ossoff and Warnock in Georgia ensured a 50-50 Senate, 
positioning Harris as the tie-breaking vote for Democratic control. But Ossoff 
and Warnock cannot join the chamber until Georgia Secretary of State Brad 
Raffensperger certifies the final vote tally. Raffensperger, a Republican, has 
said he could act as soon as Tuesday, conceivably allowing Padilla, Ossoff and 
Warnock to join the Senate together as early as that afternoon's session.

   But Republicans will maintain a narrow majority until all three take office 
and Harris sits in the presiding officer's chair.

   Harris' early departure from the Senate has multiple precedents.

   Biden was the last sitting senator to be elected vice president. He resigned 
his Delaware post on Jan. 15, 2009, five days before he and Barack Obama were 
inaugurated. Obama, a senator at the time of his election, had resigned his 
Illinois seat two months before Biden.