Republican Rep. Jo Bonner is moving up his planned resignation date to Aug. 2 to speed up a special election to fill the seat in his conservative southern Alabama district.
The 53-year-old congressman
announced in May he'd exit Aug. 15 to take a reported $350,000 job as vice chancellor at the University of Alabama System in Tuscaloosa.
“It was always my intent for this seat to be vacant as little time as possible; therefore, I am moving up my original resignation date to ensure that a new representative can be elected and seated in time for the Second Session of the 113th Congress in January 2014," Bonner told
AL.com on Tuesday.
Alabama's Republican Gov. Robert Bentley
will set a special election to fill the 1st District seat, which includes Mobile, Ala., and gave Mitt Romney more than 60 percent of the vote against Barack Obama in last year's presidential election.
The candidates for the seat so far include former state Sen. Bradley Byrne, who ran a failed gubernatorial bid in 2010, Quin Hillyer, a newspaper columnist who has received the support of former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., and state Rep. Chad Fincher, the blog
Roll Call reported.
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