President Obama’s staffing of his administration has had a remarkable churning effect on Congress. He appointed current senators as his Vice President, Secretary of State, and Secretary of the Interior and appointed current House members as Secretary of Labor, White House Chief of Staff, and Undersecretary of State for Arms Control.

And now, Rep. John M. McHugh, a Republican from New York’s 23rd District, will be nominated by President Obama to be secretary of the Army.

This means we’ll have yet another special election, this one next to New York’s 20th District which had a special election earlier this year. A side-benefit of McHugh’s nomination is that this should be a district where Democrats have a decent shot at winning the special election. This used to be Sherwood Boehlert’s seat, one of the House’s more liberal GOP members. (Scratch that; Boehlert was in the 24th District since the most recent redistricting– similar territory but different seat.) The district’s score in the Cook Partisan Voting Index is R+1, meaning a marginal Republican advantage.

UPDATE: The top Republican potential candidate has said she’s not interested; the top Democrat says “maybe” although if that state legislator won, it could put the Democrats’ majority in the State Senate.