As I’m sure everyone knows by now, President-elect Barack Obama resigned his Senate seat effective today.  Resigning a seat before becoming president isn’t entirely unusual, though most incoming presidents usually wait at least until the lame duck session is over before doing it.  The last sitting Senator to do it, John F. Kennedy, resigned on December 22, 1960.  His resignation of November 16th makes him the first person have done it so early.

It isn’t the biggest gap between one seat of power and the next.  Presidents-elect who were governors before the inaguration date was changed to January 20th by the 20th amendment sometimes had a three-month gap, but that’s because their term as governor had ended.

So, with a relatively important lame duck session coming up, one that might decide the future of several major auto manufacturers, why resign now?  There could be some reasons to do so.

First of all, Obama must select the rest of his White House team, as well as Cabinet positions and any other sub-Cabinet positions that a president-elect fills.  By returning to Washington, he risks making the Clinton blunder of appointing these positions late in the game, which would cause bumps in a so-far relatively smooth transition.  Obama doesn’t need that, so in that respect, it makes sense just to stay out of things.  He’s already expressed his support for any auto-bailout bill.

Second of all, any leg-work isn’t done in Obama’s former committees, anyway.  So what’s the point of going back when you won’t be doing anything?  Senator John McCain also won’t be in Washington for at least Monday, since he’ll be talking with Obama in Chicago.

The obvious problem comes if a bill does reach the floor of the Senate.  With Obama’s resignation and his successor not yet in place, the already razor thin majority the Democrats enjoy with the support of Lieberman and Sanders comes down to 50-49.  Obama would only be one more voice, but if one more vote is what it takes to pass the bill, well, a vote is a vote.  They could have used his help on this one

Yet, the Republicans are dead set against the bailout, and I personally don’t think the strings the Democrats have attached to a bill mandating more fuel efficiency and development for alternative-tech cars will pass muster with the Republicans, even if they can be corraled into voting to send money to the auto makers.  That bill is in the House, so I don’t know whether Reid is considering something similar or not.  But if he is, good luck in passing it.

Perhaps Obama thinks the bill won’t pass, and will wait until he’s in office before pushing for a similar bill.  Maybe.

But, I think he should have waited until at least December 1st, when the bailout issue was likely to be behind them one way or another.  After all, he’d still have a month and 20 days to make his Cabinet choices.