Rand Paul Wants to Keep Senate Seat If Running for President

Sen. Rand Paul has asked the leader of the Kentucky state Senate for legislation that will ensure he can run both for the White House and for re-election to his U.S. Senate seat in 2016, The Washington Times reported Monday.

“Yes, I am working on clarifying an ambiguous state law that Rand Paul believes is unconstitutional if it is interpreted to bar running for re-election to the Senate and for president at the same time,” Kentucky Senate Majority Leader Damon Thayer told the Times.

The hedge-bet strategy would let Paul campaign for, and possibly win, the GOP presidential nod to run for the White House while still hanging onto his U.S. Senate seat, the newspaper explained.

If he won both his re-election and the presidency, he'd give up the Senate seat; if he lost the presidency but won his Senate re-election, he'd return for a second term as U.S. senator from Kentucky.

Paul didn't return a call for comment, the newspaper said.

Paul suggested he was exploring the move during a C-SPAN “Newsmakers” program on Feb. 6. But state House Speaker Greg Stumbo, a Democrat, has said he won't allow the bill to go through his chamber, the newspaper reported, quoting an unnamed source.

Wisconsin Republican Rep. Paul Ryan in 2012, then-Democratic Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden in 2008, and Connecticut Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman in 2000 all ran for re-election while running for vice president, the newspaper noted.

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