Federal Legislature

The legislative branch makes the laws. Each state has two senators that serve 6-year terms. The Senate currently has 100 senators. The representatives serve 2-year terms with the representation based on a state’s population.  A Senator must be at least 30 years old and be a citizen of the United States for 9 years. When the Senators are elected they must be a resident of the State from which he or she is chosen.

The Senate committees are appointed by the resolution at the beginning of each Congress with power to continue to act until all of their successors are selected. The Senate creates all of the Senate committees. Currently, the Senate committees include 16 standing committees, 2 special committees, and 3 select committees.

            The Constitution assigned the Senate and the House equal responsibilities for declaring war, assessing taxes, borrowing money, maintaining armed forces, modifying commerce, minting legal tender, and making all laws necessary for the operations of the government. The Senate also holds restricted authority to advise and consent on nominations and treaties.

The People on the Senate Floor

There are different floors for the Senate each with different levels of power.

            The Secretary of the Senate is the elected official of the Senate responsible for management of administrative services and numerous legislative. The Secretary is the distributing officer for the Senate. The Secretary holds the official state seal of the Senate and prescribes the custody and the use. During the absence of the Vice President and pending election of a President pro tempore, the Secretary performs the duties of the chair.

            The chief assistant of the Secretary of the Senate is the Assistant Secretary. The duty of the Assistant Secretary performs the function’s of the Secretary in the latter’s absence, and in the event of the resignation of death of the Secretary would act as Secretary in all matters except those duties as disbursing officer of the Senate.

           The Legislative Clerk is responsible for reporting bills, messages from the House, conference reports, and amendments to the Senate. The Legislative Clerk and his assistants take all the record votes.

           The Parliamentarian works under the direction of the Secretary of the Senate. The Parliamentarian’s biggest job and responsibility is to advise the Presiding Officer on parliamentary aspects of Senate activity. He advises Senators and senatorial committee staffs, and is called on by other branches of Government, the press, and the public for information regarding procedural feature of Senate activity. 

             The Secretary for the Majority is an elected officer of the Senate who is responsible for providing many support services to the majority party leaders and members of the Senate. The floor-related duties of the Secretary include supervising the cloakroom, briefing Senators on votes and issues that are under consideration on the floor, getting pairs for Senators, and polling Senators when the Leadership so needs. He is responsible for assigning Senate Chambers seats to the majority party Members; maintaining a file of committee assignment requests; staffing the committee which arranges majority party committee assignments; recommending to the Leadership majority party candidates for appointments to boards, commissions and international conferences; maintaining records of such appointments; providing a storage area for official minutes of Steering Committee, and committee chairman; monitoring the nominations on the Executive Calendar; and other duties as directed by the Leadership. Wow, this person has a BIG job!!!

Secretary for the Minority also is an elected officer of the Senate, and performs corresponding duties for the minority party leaders and other Senators.

This page was made by Tara and Nasha!!!

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