Republican Senator Ben Sasse has officially resigned as senator and will assume his new position as president of University of Florida. Jim Pillen, Nebraska’s Republican Governor, will appoint someone who will fill the vacant seat of Sasse.

After the unanimous November vote by the University of Florida Board of Trustees to appoint him as president, Sasse has decided to leave the Senate. This is just two years into his second term.

After his criticism of President Donald Trump, Sasse’s relationship with Republicans has been difficult both nationally and locally. Inciting insurrection was the charge that Sasse faced in his second impeachment case stemming out of the attack on the U.S. Capitol, Jan. 6, 2021. He was one of seven Republican senators who voted to convict him.

Last week, Sasse made a critical speech from the Senate floor. He said that the Senate was becoming “increasingly insignificant” due to senators giving in to “social media mobs and advocacy organizations, small-dollar donor, and cable hosts.”

He said, “Each one of us knows that we should be looking in the mirror and admitting that lives lived within a politicized echo room are not worthy of a place calling itself a deliberative organ, let alone the greatest deliberative organization in the world.”

“When we are being truthful with each other, which is usually when cameras aren’t present, we all know a large chunk of the performative screaming that happens here, in every hearing room, it’s just about being booked to do even more yelling at night TV,” Sasse said.