Senate of Virginia
The Senate of Virginia is the upper house of the Virginia General Assembly, the legislature of the U.S. state of Virginia.
The chamber of parliament is composed of 40 Senators representing an electoral district respectively. Each of these units includes a fixed average rate of 176,000 citizens. Deputies are elected for four -year terms. The elections are always held on Tuesday after the first Monday in November.
Parliament met in 1788 at the Virginia State Capitol in the capital Richmond. This was designed by Thomas Jefferson. In recent years, the members of the General Assembly and their staff in the General Assembly Building find one that is located on the Capitol Square.
Tasks of the Senate
The Senate of Virginia in the fall as upper houses in other states and territories, as well as in the U.S. Senate compared to the House of Representatives special tasks that go beyond the law. So it is up to the Senate, nominations of the Governor in his cabinet to accept or reject other offices of the executive branch and commissions and authorities.
Content and prerequisite for the Chamber of Deputies
The annual salary of the delegates is $ 18,000. In addition, each candidate has to go to the House of Representatives 21 years or older and be residents of the district, which he wants to represent before the election. But he must also be eligible for the General Assembly to vote legislature. A regular session of the General Assembly takes a straight year of 60 days and in an odd year 30 days unless it is extended by a two-thirds majority.
Structure of the chamber
President of the Senate is the acting vice governor, respectively. At votes he only participates to bring about a decision in stalemates. In the absence of the Lieutenant Governor - currently the Republicans Bill Bolling - is the respective President pro tempore of the plenary sessions ago. This is elected by the majority party of the Senate and later confirmed by the chamber. Other important office holders are the Majority Leader ( Majority Leader ) and the leader of the opposition (minority leader), who are elected by the respective fractions.
Composition of the Board
Important members of the Chamber
Senate Seal
The Senate has its own coat of arms which was designed and issued by the College of Arms in England. This coat of arms is depicted on the official seal of the Senate of Virginia. It has no resemblance to the seal of the Commonwealth of Virginia, which is the seal of the entire state.
The coat of arms was adopted on 22 January 1981. It is supposedly based on the seal and coat of arms of the London Company, the royally chartered companies that financed the European settlement in Virginia. Except for the quartered shield, which is displayed on both displays, there is no similarity between them.
In the center of the Senate emblem is a shield that is divided by a red cross into four sections. In each district there is a small signs, which represent the coat of arms of four countries (England, France, Scotland and Ireland), from which most settlers arrived in the first waves of European immigration in Virginia.
The four coat of arms, a small crest of a crowned female head with open hair, Queen Elizabeth I (Virginia was named after the Virgin Queen) probably represents and the Dragon (part of Elizabeth's royal seal of England) refer to Virginia's European heritage. The Senate seal is no reference to Virginia's Native Americans or African-American heritage.
An ivory hammer adorns the vertical section of the Red Cross in the Coat of Arms, which identifies the Senate as the legislative power. The pictured cardinal and the dogwood is Virginia's official state bird and tree. The volume contains the Latin motto of the Senate, Floreat Senatus virginiae, which translates as meaning " May the Senate of Virginia flourish ".