Party leaders of the United States Senate

The Senate is currently composed of 49 Republicans, 47 Democrats, and 4 independents; all the independents caucus with the Democrats.

The current leaders are Senators Chuck Schumer (D) of New York and Mitch McConnell (R) of Kentucky.^[1] The current assistant leaders, or whips, are Senators Dick Durbin (D) of Illinois and John Thune (R) of South Dakota.

By at least 1850, parties in each chamber of Congress began naming chairs, and while conference and caucus chairs carried very little authority, the Senate party floor leader positions arose from the position of conference chair.^[2] Senate Democrats began the practice of electing their floor leaders in 1920 while they were in the minority. John W. Kern was a Democratic senator from Indiana. While the title was not official, the Senate website identifies Kern as the first Senate party leader, serving in that capacity from 1913 through 1917 (and in turn, the first Senate Democratic leader), while serving concurrently as chairman of the Senate Democratic Caucus.^[3] In 1925, the Republicans (who were in the majority at the time) also adopted this language when Charles Curtis became the first (official) majority leader,^[4] although his immediate predecessor Henry Cabot Lodge is considered the first (unofficial) Senate majority leader.

The United States Constitution designates the vice president of the United States as president of the Senate. The Constitution also calls for a president pro tempore, to serve as the presiding officer when the president of the Senate (the vice president) is absent. In practice, neither the vice president nor the president pro tempore—customarily the most senior (longest-serving) senator in the majority party—actually presides over the Senate on a daily basis; that task is given to junior senators of the majority party. Since the vice president may be of a different party from the majority and is not a Senate member subject to discipline, the rules of procedure of the Senate give the vice president no power beyond the presiding role. For these reasons, it is the majority leader who, in practice, manages the Senate. This is in contrast to the House of Representatives, where the elected speaker of the House has a great deal of discretionary power and generally presides over votes on legislative bills.^{[citation needed]}

Under a long-standing Senate precedent, motions or amendments by the majority leader is granted precedence over motions by any other senator: the majority leader can therefore make at any time a motion to proceed to the consideration of a bill on the Senate Calendar (which contains almost exclusively bills which have been reported by the committee they were assigned to); a motion to proceed may be agreed to either by unanimous consent or through the invocation of cloture. Conventionally, no senator other than the majority leader introduces motions to proceed, although every senatore is theoretically allowed to. In addition, the majority leader can block consideration of amendments through a practice known as "filling the tree", and decides which members will fill each of the committee seats reserved to the majority party; members of committees are therefore often prone to following the instructions of the majority leader, and rarely place bills on the Senate Calendar without the latter's consent.^[5]

The Democratic Party first selected a leader in 1920. The Republican Party first formally designated a leader in 1925.^[6]

• Party leaders of the United States House of Representatives
• President pro tempore of the United States Senate
• Vice President of the United States (President of the United States Senate)
• Party divisions of United States Congresses
• List of political parties in the United States

• Majority and Minority Leaders and Party Whips, via Senate.gov
• Senate Republicans
• Senate Democrats