Concept

United States Senate

Overview

The United States Senate is a chamber of the bicameral United States Congress; it is the upper house, and the U.S. House of Representatives is the lower house. Together, the Senate and House have the authority under Article One of the Constitution to make and pass or defeat federal legislation.

The Senate has exclusive power to confirm U.S. presidential appointments, to approve or reject treaties, and to convict or exonerate impeachment cases brought by the House. The Senate and the House provide a check and balance on the powers of the executive and judicial branches of government. The composition and powers of the Senate are established by Article One of the U.S. Constitution, which has been in effect since March 4, 1789. Each of the 50 states is represented by two senators who serve staggered six-year terms, for a total of 100 members.

From the Senate's inception in 1789 until 1913, senators were appointed by the state legislatures of their respective states. Since 1913, however, following ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment, senators have been elected by statewide popular vote.

The Senate has several powers of advice and consent. These include the approval of treaties, the confirmation of Cabinet secretaries, federal judges (including justices of the Supreme Court), flag officers, regulatory officials, ambassadors, other federal executive officials, and federal uniformed officers. If no candidate receives a majority of electors for vice president, the duty falls to the Senate to elect one of the top two recipients of electors to that office. The Senate conducts trials of officials who have been impeached by the House. The Senate has been considered both a more deliberative and prestigious body than the House of Representatives due to its longer terms, smaller size, and statewide constituencies, which historically led to a more collegial and less partisan atmosphere.

The Senate chamber is located in the north wing of the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., the nation's capital. Not themselves a senator, vice president of the United States serves as ex officio presiding officer and president of the Senate; they vote only if and when the Senate is equally divided. In the vice president's absence, the president pro tempore, who is traditionally the most senior member of the Senate majority party, presides over the Senate, and more often by rule allows a junior senator to take the chair, guided by the parliamentarian. In the early 1920s, the practice of majority and minority parties electing their floor leaders began. The Senate's legislative and executive business is managed and scheduled by the Senate majority leader, who, on occasion, negotiates some matters with the Senate minority leader. A characteristic practice in the Senate is the filibuster on some matters and its remedy, the vote on cloture.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Possible passages

Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.

This form of government is termed, by the Romans, interregnum. Nor yet could they, by this plausible and modest way of rule, escape suspicion and clamor of the vulgar, as though they were changing the form of government to an oligarchy, and designing to keep the supreme power in…
Plutarch, Plutarch
States what United States Senate is.
Read the chapter · Open in the reader
_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:-- In the city of New Orleans, and adjacent to it, are sundry parcels of ground, some of them with buildings and other improvements on them, which it is my duty to present to the attention of the legislature. The title to those grounds appear to have been retained in the former sovereigns of the province of Louisiana, as public fiduciaries, and for…
Thomas Jefferson, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 8
States what United States Senate is.
Read the chapter · Open in the reader
It was therefore the Assembly that elected their own Elders: the Apostles were onely Presidents of the Assembly to call them together for such Election, and to pronounce them Elected, and to give them the benediction, which now is called Consecration. And for this cause they that were Presidents of the Assemblies, as (in the absence of the Apostles) the Elders were, were called proestotes, and in Latin Antistities…
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
States what United States Senate is.
Read the chapter · Open in the reader

Philosophers who discussed United States Senate

Related ideas

Opposing perspectives

James Madison

Place in the tradition

Part of American philosophy.

Explore United States Senate in the interactive graph →