Tennessee Senate

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Tennessee State Capitol in Nashville

The Senate of Tennessee ( Tennessee State Senate ) is the upper house of the Tennessee General Assembly , the legislature of the US state of Tennessee . The Senate boardroom, along with the House of Representatives, is located in the Tennessee State Capitol in the capital, Nashville .

history

According to the Tennessee Constitution of 1870, the House of Representatives consists of 33 members, which is exactly one third of the seats in the House of Representatives . According to an old rule in the constitution, no part of a county could be connected to another to create a possible district . This regulation was made by the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States in Baker v. Carr (369 US 182 1962) and Reynolds v. Sims (337 US 356 1964) annulled. As a result, the Tennessee Constitution was amended to allow a referendum to be held from there, if these regulations were ever changed or repealed, to allow Senate districts to be drawn differently than on the basis of the same population.

Until 1966, a member's tenure in the Tennessee Senate was limited to two years. Subsequently, through a constitutional amendment that year, the term of office was increased to four years. Furthermore, the terms of office have been staggered so that half of the senators are re-elected every two years. To accomplish this, in 1966 senators were elected for the first time in the even-numbered Senate districts for two years and in each odd-numbered Senate district for four years. The districts should be numbered consecutively and one after the other. The plan basically runs from east to west and north to south.

Tasks of the Senate

As in the upper houses of other states and territories and in the US Senate , the Tennessee Senate has special tasks compared to the House of Representatives that go beyond legislation. It is the responsibility of the Senate to confirm or reject nominations by the governor in his cabinet, other executive offices, commissions and authorities.

Structure of the chamber

The President of the Senate ( Speaker ) is an elected member of the Senate who, upon election, will also become Lieutenant Governor of Tennessee. In the absence of the Vice Governor, the respective speaker presides over the plenary sessions pro tempore . This is elected by the majority parliamentary group in the Senate and later confirmed by the Chamber. The current lieutenant governor and speaker is Republican Ron Ramsey , speaker pro tempore is Republican Jamie Woodson (6th electoral district).

Other important office holders are the majority leader and the opposition leader ( minority leader ), who are elected by the respective parliamentary groups. The Republican majority leader is Mark Norris from the 32nd electoral district; Minority leader of the Democrats is Jim Kyle (28th electoral district).

composition

Political party MPs
Republican Party 20th
Democratic Party 13
total 33
majority 7th

Web links