West Virginia Senate
The Senate of West Virginia (West Virginia State Senate ) is the upper house of the West Virginia Legislature, the legislature of the U.S. state of West Virginia.
The chamber of parliament is composed of 34 senators, with two of them represent a choice district. The senators are elected for four -year terms. In addition, these terms are staggered so that always half of the senators are elected every two years. The meeting room of the Senate is located together with the Chamber of Deputies in the West Virginia State Capitol in the capital Charleston.
District system
The district system of West Virginia is unique in the United States. The most populous County, Kanawha County, is divided into two separate districts. In practice, this means that there every two years, two members are elected. The remaining 54 counties in West Virginia are divided among the remaining fifteen districts, the County boundaries are ignored. The special feature of this system is now that no district may submit more than one senator from the same county, the population is irrelevant. This means for example that one be a resident of the two senators from the 5th District in Cabell County needs and the other in the small section of Wayne County, which belongs to the 5th district, even if the Cabell County residents more than the part of Wayne County has the 5th district. Furthermore, both senators are elected from each within the district; it need not be citizens of the County, where the senator is resident.
President of the Senate
The President of the Senate is currently Governor Earl Ray Tomblin. He moved in November 2010 to the head of state, after his predecessor Joe Manchin was elected to the U.S. Senate; Tomblin had previously taken officio President of the Senate ex the post of Lieutenant Governor. In January 2011, an addition was made to the Rules of the Senate, that the Office of the Acting President would be created. The respective owner follows the Senate President, if this moving up as Acting Governor. The office of the Senate president in turn was anchored specifically in West Virginia Code to regulate the succession to the Governor.
In the absence of the Senate President pro tempore of the respective president stands in front of the plenary sessions. This is elected by the majority party of the Senate and later confirmed by the chamber. First Acting President was Democrat Jeff Kessler, President pro tempore is the Democrat Brooks McCabe.
Composition
For Majority Leader ( Majority leader) of Democrat John Unger was elected; Leader of the opposition (minority leader) is the Republican Mike Hall.