Jesse Venura has appointed Dean Barkley to fill Paul Wellstone’s vacant seat. He starts November 12. According to Minnesota law he serves until November 19. Tho senate rules will probably trump this and he will serve until January. http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/11/04/elec02.mn.s.ventura/index.html
Has anyone served a shorter term? I figure someone may have been apointed a cabinet seat shortly after being elected or something.
Brian
Could be Milton Latham. He served as California Senator for five days:
Hah, five days.
Try this
This is from the Senate chronology at http://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/history/one_item_and_teasers/chronology.htm
If I read that site on Milton Latham correctly, the 5 days were how long he was governor. Which might be the record for shortest gubernatorial term, I don’t know.
This question can’t be answered without a digression on how the Senate determines starting and ending dates of senatorial service. (And, not incidentally, how Senators get paid.) When a senator is appointed to a vacant seat, as in the Felton case, service begins with the date of appointment–even though it may be some time before the senator presents himself or herself in Washington to be sworn in. When a senator is elected to replace an appointee, service commences when the new senator is sworn in–unless the Senate has adjourned sine die for the session, in which case service commences the day after the certification of election by the appropriate state authority (usually, the Secretary of State). Got it?
Now then. In the Felton case, the sequence was:
9/26/1922: Senator Thomas Watson (D-GA) died.
10/3/1922: Felton appointed to fill vacancy. The Senate was not in session at that time, but hadn’t yet adjourned sine die for the session.
11/7/1922: Walter George elected to fill remainder of term.
11/21/1922: Senate re-convenes; Felton sworn in and serves for a day.
11/22/1922: George sworn in for remainder of term. I imagine that George could have arrived and taken the oath a day sooner, but allowed Felton to take the floor for a day as a matter of courtesy. Her service was historic since she was the first woman Senator.
In any case, Felton’s service is dated from October 3 to November 22, even though she didn’t begin serving on the floor of the Senate until November 21.
The record for briefest senatorial tenure is held not by Felton but by Landslide Louis Wyman of New Hampshire. He won the disputed 1974 Senate election in NH–at one point, his margin of victory was 2 votes–and was prepared to take office on January 3, 1975. The incument senator resigned, and the governor appointed Wyman to fill out the final 60 hours of his term, from midnight on January 1, 1975 through noon on January 3, 1975. This was common at the time because it gave incoming senators a leg up on seniority. (Both parties later changed their rules.) When the Senate convened on 1/3/1975, however, it refused to seat either Wyman or his opponent, ruling the election was too close to call and would be a do-over. Alas, Wyman lost the re-run in September 1975. So his only stint in the Senate was the 60 hours in January. The Senate, of course, was not in session at the time, so he never got to cast a vote or make a speech.
OK, but in the Congressional Biographical Dictionary, Felton’s term is listed as solely 11/21-21/1922
http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=F000069
There’s no right answer. In Clintonian fashion, it depends on the meaning of what “service in the Senate” is. See http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/2/36.html for the U.S. Code definition. Note that by the “service on the floor” definition Wyman never served at all, but he is listed in the Biographical Directory as a Senator, so they aren’t entirely consistent in this regard.
If I read that post correctly, I’m an idiot. :smack: