Kennedy isn't Chair at Judiciary. He's giving up his backbench seat on Judiciary to focus on HELP, of which he _is_ Chair.

The headline really says:

Source: Illinois State Senator to Likely to Fill Obama's Senate Seat

Which means "source" doesn't know any more than I knew when Jones announces he was leaving the Illinois Senate President's office to someone else.

I still think it makes sense in Blagojevichland. Which has little to no relationship with reality in Illinois.

Though the 27th Amendment prevents one Congress from raising its own pay; it can only raise the pay of the next Congress, which they (or most of them) might not be elected to.

And then there were 434 ....

Anyone else notice the first paragraph of that release says IL-11, not VA-11?

Makes me wonder if someone in the Clerk Of The House's office is expecting the same from Jerry Weller. (Either that or someone wants to remind us here in the Prairie State that we're still short a Senator.)

I think JQA is the only President to have served in both houses of Congress separated by the Presidency. He was in the Senate first.

This is the first time I've heard what should be major international news from DCW first. (BBC and Trib did not deem is Breaking News-worthy, at least not yet. AJC beat LAT to my inbox by half an hour, but I hadn't had all my e-mail load yet before I saw it here. And the ADN is just in with it, two hours later still.)

Succession I would think is a bit different. Though usually it isn't a change in party in power. Still, remember Edwin M. Stanton as Secretary of War; he refused to resign,and Johnson was impeached for trying to fire him.

Kissinger was NSA first under Johnson, then continued under Nixon and Ford, but that's not a Senate Confirmation post.

Adams kept Washington's Cabinet intact (State, Treasury, War, and Justice being the only Departments at the time). A perusal of the Senate Executive Journal does not show any confirmation votes for the holdovers.

Mineta was Commerce Secretary under Clinton and became SecTrans under Bush. Source

It could be you're just better at it. Every time I hear something I look here and it's already here. (Which isn't surprising nor a complaint; far from it.)

I just wish there were more rumors about SecTrans. WaPo has a list of 4 candidates for that post, but nothing is rumored, it seems.

Fillmore  100  100    4,770  -1    4,614  -15    14    27    3

The video says the ballots challenged there are in Fillmore County. The row of the STrib's table for that county is copied above; it shows 27 Coleman challenges (of which we saw 9 in the video, 7 McCain/Franken and 2 McCain/Abstain), and Franken at -15 votes based on the recount.