U.S. Senator: 2005–2008

U.S. Senator: 2005–2008
Main article: United States Senate career of Barack Obama
Obama was sworn in as a senator on January 4, 2005.[61] Obama was the fifth African American Senator in U.S. history and the third to have been popularly elected.[62] He was the only Senate member of the Congressional Black Caucus.[63] CQ Weekly, a nonpartisan publication, characterized him as a "loyal Democrat" based on analysis of all Senate votes in 2005–2007. The National Journal ranked him as the "most liberal" senator based on an assessment of selected votes during 2007; in 2005 he was ranked sixteenth most liberal, and in 2006 he was ranked tenth.[64] In 2008, Congress.org ranked him as the eleventh most powerful Senator,[65] and the politician who was the most popular in the Senate, enjoying 72% approval in Illinois.[66] Obama announced on November 13, 2008 that he would resign his senate seat on November 16, 2008, before the start of the lame-duck session, to focus on his transition period for the presidency.[67] This enabled him to avoid the conflict of dual roles as President-elect and Senator in the lame duck session of Congress, which no sitting member of Congress had faced since Warren Harding.[68]