The Australian Senate elects a president from its members, who is comparable to the Speaker of the House of Representatives. Unlike the Speaker, the President casts a deliberative vote in elections and not a casting vote; tied motions fail to pass. The position is partisan and has usually been held by a member of the Government party. The President is assisted by a deputy president, who has been (since 1981) a member of the Opposition party.
The presiding officer of the Belgian Senate is elected by the senators at the beginning of each parliamentary term. The President of the Senate is customarily a member of a majority party with a great deal of political experience. He or she presides over the plenary assembly of the Senate, guides and controls debates in the assembly, and is responsible for ensuring the democratic functioning of the Senate, for the maintenance of order and security in the assembly and for enforcing the Rules of the Senate. He or she also represents the Senate at both the national (to the other institutions) and the international level.
The President of the Senate, together with the President of the Chamber of Representatives, ranks immediately behind the King in the order of precedence. The elder of the two takes the second place in the order of precedence. The Presidents of the Senate and the Chamber rank above the Prime Minister.
The Senate of Belize elects both a president and a vice-president upon first convening after a general election. The person elected president may be a senator (provided he/she does not concurrently hold a ministerial position) or a person external to the Senate. The vice-president must be a member of the Senate who does not hold a ministerial portfolio. (Constitution, section 66.)1
The Senate of Cambodia is led by a 12-person permanent commission (bureau), which is in turn chaired by the President of the Senate, currently Chea Sim. He is assisted by a First and a Second Vice-President.2 The President and Vice-Presidents are elected as the first item of business at the start of every legislative session.3
The President of the Senate of Chile is elected from among the country's senators. The current holder of the position, since March 2008, is Adolfo Zaldivar.
The Senate of France elects a president from among its own number. The President of the French Senate stands first in line of succession in case of death or resignation of the President of the Republic, becoming acting president until a presidential election can be held. This most recently occurred with Alain Poher, who was senate president from 1968 to 1992 and who served as interim president on two occasions: following De Gaulle's resignation in 1969, and following Pompidou's death in office in 1974.
Since 2008, the position has been held by Gérard Larcher of the UMP.
In the German Länder of Bremen and Hamburg, the Senates (or Senat in German) are the executive branch, with Senators (Senator) being the holders of ministerial portfolios. In these Länder, the President of the Senate (Präsident des Senats) is an office equivalent to that of minister-president in the other German Länder.
The Senate of Italy holds its first sitting no later than 20 days after a general election. That session, presided by the oldest senator, proceeds to elect the President of the Senate for the following parliamentary period. On the first two attempts at voting, an absolute majority of all senators is needed; if a third round is needed, a candidate can be elected by an absolute majority of the senators present and voting. If this third round fails to produce a winner, a final ballot is held between the two senators with the highest votes in the previous ballot. In the case of a tie, the elder senator is deemed the winner.
In addition to overseeing the business of the chamber, chairing and regulating debates, deciding whether motions and bills are admissible, representing the Senate, etc., the President of the Senate stands in for the President of the Republic when s/he is unable to perform his/her duties.4
The Senate of Mexico, at the beginning of each annual legislative session, elects an Executive Board (Mesa Directiva) from among its 128 members. The Executive Board comprises a president, three vice-presidents, and four secretaries, elected by an absolute majority of the Senators. Members of the Executive Board may be re-elected for the following year without restriction. The President of the Executive Board also serves as the President of the Senate.
The Standing Bureau of the Romanian Senate consists of the President of the Senate, four vice-presidents, four secretaries, and four quaestors. The President of the Standing Bureau also serves as the President of the Senate. The President is elected, by secret ballot, for the duration of the legislative period.5
The President of the Senate of Trinidad and Tobago, who is generally elected from the government benches, chairs debates in the chamber and stands in for the country's president during periods of absence or illness (Constitution, section 27).6 A Vice-President of the Senate is also elected from among the senators. The current President of the Senate is Danny Montano.
The Vice President of the United States is designated by the Constitution as the President of the Senate. The Vice President holds a tie breaking vote in the Senate and does not usually preside over the Senate. Since its conception, the role of casting a tie-breaking vote in the Senate has been exercised 242 times. The Vice President of the United States with the most tie breaking votes is John Adams with 29. If there is no sitting Vice President then the President pro tempore of the United States Senate or "President pro tem" serves as President of the Senate. The President pro tem also serves in this role in the Vice President's absence, or if the Vice President assumes the office of President of the United States. In practice, freshman senators are traditionally assigned the role of presiding over the Senate in order to learn Senate procedure.
The current Vice President of the United States and President of the U.S. Senate is Dick Cheney.
U.S. state senates
In state governments of the United States, the President of the state Senate (the upper house of the state legislatures) is a matter decided by the state constitution. Some states designate the Lieutenant Governor as President of the Senate, while other states allow for the Senate to elect one of the Senators as President. The Tennessee Senate elects a Senator as Speaker, and this Speaker is given the title of Lieutenant Governor. Similarly, New Hampshire has no lieutenant governor, but the State Senate elects a president who is the de facto Lieutenant Governor, given that in the event of the Governor's death, resignation, or inability to serve, the President of the Senate acts as Governor until the position is filled, presumably by the next regularly scheduled biennial Gubernatorial election.
While such systems where the first in line for the Executive is the President of the Senate seem similar to the Vice Presidency of the United States, only once in history has there been a Vice President of a party opposing that of the President, when Democratic–RepublicanThomas Jefferson was Vice President under FederalistJohn Adams, a situation that in part prompted the later adoption of the Twelfth Amendment to prevent such a situation from recurring. (While Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson were a Republican and a Democrat respectively, they were elected together on the National Union ticket in the 1864 presidential election.) In states where the President of a Senate is chosen by the Senate (Tennessee and New Hampshire), it is far more likely in that the first in line of succession for the executive would be a political adversary of the sitting Governor.
