Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said Thursday that Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida should resign while he pursues the Republican presidential nomination.
"Why shouldn’t he?" the Nevada Democrat asked
Politico in an interview. "He hates the Senate.
"Why should the taxpayers of this country and people of Florida put up with having only one senator? Doesn’t seem fair to me."
Rubio, who is in his first term, has missed 99 of 291 votes since the first of the year through Oct. 22, according to
Govtrack.us.
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush urged him to step down during Wednesday's third GOP debate in Colorado.
Rubio retorted that his longtime mentor was attacking him because they were both seeking the same position.
While praising Rubio for his work on the Gang of Eight immigration reform bill in 2013, Reid told Politico that called Rubio had become a "non-entity" in the Senate.
"For Marco Rubio here to dump on the Senate, this institution established by our founding fathers, he should be ashamed of himself," Reid said. "And the people of Florida, why they put up with it, I don’t know.
"They damn-sure aren’t getting their money's worth."
However, Alex Conant, a Rubio spokesman, said of Reid's comments: "I must have forgotten Harry Reid similarly calling on Barack Obama to resign the Senate when he missed even more votes to run for president.
"It's obvious that Democrat leaders are very worried that Marco will beat Clinton next year," he told Politico.