President pro tem

How is the President pro tem of the Senate chosen? How often is he/she/Strom Thurmond chosen?

The President Pro Tem of the Senate is elected by the members of the Senate.

By fairly long standing tradition, the person chosen is the member of the majority party with the most seniority (he/she/ST receives the votes of the majority party members, and the minority party votes for their own candidate - who I suspect is their most senior member).

I suspect that the position is only up for election when the previous President Pro Tem leaves office / dies / …, but am not sure about that.

The U.S. Senate has an online inquiry page here Learning About the Senate that says

(Click on President Pro Tempore to get the pop-up window that includes the above text.)

Since that description differs from dorkbro’s post in no substantial particulars, I offer it solely as an indication of the information available on the web. Your tax dollars at work.

To be even more pedantic, until 1890, the President Pro Tem was chosen as needed, although it was almost always the senior member of the majority party; however, if that Senator wasn’t available, the Senate made somebody else the President Pro Tem. In 1890, the President Pro Tem was given more security and was chosen until “the Senate otherwise ordered”, which usually meant until the Senator died, resigned, or found himself in the minority.

John Langdon of New Hampshire was the first Senate President Pro Tem.

OK, so what if there are two longest-serving senators from the majority party who both joined the Senate on the same day? Which one has seniority and gets to be the PPT?

Presumably, it would be the one who was sworn in first on that day. So how do they decide the swearing-in order? Does it go alphabetically by the senator’s name, or alphabetically by state, or some other order?

Whenever the Senate switches control of parties, or when a new Congress convenes in the January after an election, there are a whole series of resolutions that are adopted to appoint officers to various positions: PPT, Sergeant at Arms, Secretary of the Senate, etc. These resolutions are not actually voted on, as a rule, the membership of the Senate knows what’s what and they are agreed to unanimously.

You may be interested to know that there is now the (meaningless) title of President Pro Tempore Emeritus, recognizing the senior member of the opposition party. It was created for Strom Thurmond when the Democrats took over in 2001, and the title is now held by Robert Byrd.

On Mojo’s question about a “tie” in seniority, even though senators may have been elected on the same day, there is never a “tie” in seniority. There is a tie-breaking procedure that is applied when a new class of senators take their seats (note that the position of senators’ desks is based upon seniority, as well).

Unfortunately, I’m having a hell of a time finding the procedure on Google, but it starts with comparing things such as previous elected service, and ends with an alphabetical listing of a senator’s last name. I’ll keep looking for it.

LIke the NFL, the Senate uses a complex tiebreaking system to determine who gets credit for more seniority.

From C-SPAN:

Seniority is figured on a continuous basis. Quit for a day, and then get reappointed and you’re back to zero.

If the Democrats were to regain control, Robert Byrd would again become president pro tem. Next in line would be Ted Kennedy, followed by Daniel Inouye. Kennedy has a 2-month edge on Inouye.

Ernest Hollins is next, but he is retiring at the end of this term.

Byrd is getting close to Thurmond’s record for length of service in the Senate.