All states are represented equally in the U.S. Senate by two senators (in contrast to the House of Representatives, where a state's representation is in proportion to the size of the state's population). Senators serve six-year terms and are divided into three “classes,” so that only one class, or one-third of the Senate, is up for election every two years. With two-thirds of its membership carrying over after each election, the Senate is a “continuing body.” These longer terms (House members serve only two years) were intended to insulate the Senate—more than the House—from sudden shifts in public opinion.
The equality of the states' representation in the Senate, regardless of the size of the population, was designed to protect the smaller states. The Senate adopted rules that further enhanced minority rights. A small minority of senators, even a minority of one, can use the rules to delay or defeat objectionable legislation. The Senate's toleration of unlimited debate, in the form of the filibuster, has been its most notable difference from the House, whose rules favor the majority.
Although both houses of Congress share essentially the same powers, the Senate has the sole power of “advice and consent,” to confirm the President's nominations and to ratify treaties. The Vice President serves as president (or presiding officer) of the Senate, and the senators elect their other officers. Like the House, the Senate determines its own rules and disciplines its own members. The Senate also sits as a court of impeachment once the House has voted to impeach, or formally accuse, a federal officer.
Initially, the Senate met in secret session, and even after it opened its doors in 1794 it operated for years in the shadow of the House. But during the 1830s the Senate emerged as a powerful counterforce to the strong Presidency of Andrew Jackson. Such rivals to Jackson as Henry Clay and Daniel Webster used the Senate as their forum, and a new political party, the Whigs, developed around them. Because senators were evenly divided between free and slave states, the Senate became the center of efforts to preserve the Union. Senators sought legislative compromise to calm popular passions, but decades of compromise could not prevent the Civil War.
Senate leadership
The decades after the Civil War saw powerful committee chairmen exert strong party leadership over the Senate. By 1900 journalists were pointing to the Senate Four—Republicans Nelson Aldrich, William Allison, John C. Spooner, and Orville Platt—as being so influential that they could “block and defeat anything that the president or the House may desire.” Press criticism of the Senate as a “millionaires' club,” more responsive to powerful corporations than to public opinion, resulted in the 17th Amendment in 1913. It gave the privilege of electing senators to the voters rather than to state legislatures.
Throughout its first century, the Senate acted as a body of equals without official floor leaders. The position of majority leader emerged in 1913, when Democratic Caucus chairman John Worth Kern took on the role of directing his party's initiatives on the floor. The parties formalized the posts of majority and minority leader in the 1920s, and the leaders took the front-row seats on either side of the center aisle. Senate rules give the leaders the right of “first recognition,” meaning that the presiding officer must recognize them to speak before any other senators.
A clublike atmosphere
The atmosphere of the Senate has been compared to that of an exclusive club. Within that club developed an “inner club” made up of powerful committee chairmen and ranking minority party members. The “inner club” drew its membership largely from conservative Southern Democratic committee chairmen and generally excluded junior members and Northern liberals. During the 1950s Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson (Democrat-Texas) began to change this structure by appointing freshmen senators to important committees rather than making them spend years in apprenticeships on lesser committees. Johnson's successor as majority leader, Mike Mansfield (Democrat-Missouri), furthered the trend by spreading power more equally among all senators.
While the upper houses of most parliaments (such as the British House of Lords) have declined in influence in the 20th century, the Senate remains a powerful legislative body. As the Constitution intended, the Senate serves to balance the House, just as the Congress as a whole checks and balances the executive and judiciary branches of the government.
See also Advice and consent; Bicameral; Committees, congressional; Filibuster; House-Senate Relations; “Inner club”; Leadership in Congress; “Millionaires' club”; Nominations, confirmation of; Treaty powers
Sources
- Richard A. Baker, The United States Senate: A Bicentennial History (Malabar, Fla.: Krieger, 1987).
- George E. Reedy, The U.S. Senate: Paralysis or a Search for Consensus? (New York: Crown, 1986).
- Donald A. Ritchie, The Senate (New York: Chelsea House, 1988)
The Oxford Guide to the United States Government. Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1998, 2001, 2002 by John J. Patrick, Richard M. Pious, Donald M. Ritchie. All rights reserved.
