CNN

Washington (CNN) – Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii, said Friday that he will formally announce his retirement from Congress this weekend so he can focus on his run for governor next year.

Abercrombie has scheduled a press conference for Sunday.

"I cannot claim the Governorship should be a cornerstone of our democracy and not make the campaign for it the center of all my efforts," Abercrombie said in a statement posted on his campaign Web site.

The 10-term congressman said he already shared his decision with the White House, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and other members of Hawaii's congressional delegation. Abercrombie's move will trigger a special election to fill the remainder of his term.

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Alabama currently tops the BCS rankings.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – It may not top the list of Obama administration priorities, but Hawaii Democratic Congressman Neil Abercrombie is urging the president-elect to take on one more controversial issue - creating a new playoff system for college football.

Obama himself has already waded into the debate. In a 60 Minutes interview on CBS last month, he said he would push for a championship playoff system - adding three weeks to the current college football schedule - to replace the current Bowl Championship Series (BCS). "I'm gonna throw my weight around a little bit. I think it's the right thing to do," Obama said.

Critics of the current BCS model argue that it gives a competitive and financial advantage to schools in the six BCS conferences and excludes schools with equally good or better football records in the other five non- BCS college football conferences. BCS-sponsored bowl games at the end of the season generate hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue for the schools who are selected to play in them.

Seizing on Obama's public support of a new system, Abercrombie wrote a letter to the president-elect last month urging him to have the Department of Justice investigate the issue. “With the prestige of the Presidency and vigorous pursuit by the Department of Justice in support of fairness and equity, we are certain the BCS will be persuaded to resolve the issues to the benefit of the nation’s colleges and their fans.”

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