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The seniority in the United States Senate is based upon a series of ranked factors; only resorting to the next factor when tied.[1]
Senior Senator and Junior Senator are terms commonly used in the media to describe United States Senators. Each state sends two senators to serve in the Senate; the longer (continuously) serving of the two is by convention referred to as the senior senator, and the other is referred to as the junior senator. If both are elected at the same time (e.g., one in a regular election and the other simultaneously to fill the seat of a senator who resigned), the one who is sworn in first is senior.
There is no mandated difference in rights or power, although Senate rules give more power to senators with more seniority. Generally, senior senators will have more power, though being a member of the majority party is more advantageous than being senior. In addition, by custom the senior senators from the president's party control federal patronage appointments in their states. Thus being the junior senator is disadvantageous if the senior one is from the same party.
Some of the perquisites of seniority offered by the U.S. Senate:
Traditionally, seniority brings with it greater clout. As a result of this, it is fairly difficult for the more junior members of both houses of Congress to have a significant impact on policy. Notable exceptions to this include Lyndon B. Johnson (elected in 1948), who was junior to Thomas T. Connally (elected in 1928); Joseph McCarthy (elected to Senate in 1946), who was junior to Alexander Wiley (elected to Senate in 1938); and Trent Lott (elected 1988), who was junior to Thad Cochran (elected 1978).