Cochran Expected to Resign Next Year

Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS), chairman of the powerful Appropriations Committee, “hasn’t presided over a hearing since early September. The Mississippi Republican has not given a speech on the Senate floor all year, and he’s introduced only two bills during that time, both of them minor,” Politico reports.

“The 80-year-old’s feeble performance has fueled expectations — among senators and aides who’ve witnessed his physical and mental decline firsthand — that Cochran will step down from the Appropriations chairmanship early next year, or resign from the Senate altogether.”

Said one GOP senator: “The understanding is that he will leave after Jan. 1, That’s what most of us believe will happen.”