United States Senate

The United States Senate is the upper house of the Congress of the United States, whose lower house is the U.S. House of Representatives. Together, they comprise the legislative branch of the United States government. Each state elects two senators through state-wide elections. If a vacancy occurs between elections, generally the governor of the state appoints a replacement to serve as senator until the next biennial election. The Senate chamber is located in the south wing of the U. S. Capitol, in Washington, D.C.

Operation

Constitutional authority: The Senate is responsible for confirming important Presidental appointments, particularly federal judges.

Procedures maybe: U.S. Senate procedures
- filibuster

Unlike the United States House of Representatives there are no strict rules regarding the debate, and one strategy used by senators to kill a bill is to filibuster which is to continue to debate the bill thereby preventing its passage. The power of the filibuster has been considerably reduced by the cloture rule in which 60 senators can sign a petition to end debate.

Because the Senate is smaller, the committees within the Senate are generally less powerful than the corresponding ones in the House. The exceptions to this are the Senate Judiciary Committee which reviews Presidental appointments to Federal judgeships, and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee which reviews treaties.

Composition and elections

With two Senators from each state, the Senate presently has 100 members. Senators serve for terms of six years; the terms are staggered so that approximately one-third of the Senate is up for election every two years: each time there are elections in about 33 states for one of the two seats. They coincide with the elections for the House of Representatives; alternately they coincide with the presidential election; when they do not, they are called mid-term elections.

When the major parties are evenly split, the party affiliation of the Vice President, as the tie-breaker vote, determines which is the majority party.

For details, see the list of United States Senators.

During the 107th Congress (2001-2003)

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+	Republicans: 49	-	Independent: 2 (James Jeffords (I-VT) votes with the Democrats. Dean Barkley (I-MN) does not vote with any party.)
*	Democrats: 48	+	Vacancy: 1 (Frank Murkowski (R-AK) resigned on 3 December 2002 to become Governor or Alaska.)

Upcoming 108th Congress (2003-2005)

Projected results from the November 5, 2002 elections indicate that the Republican party will gain control, with at least 50 seats plus the Vice-President.

Senate Pages

History

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