Mewborn, Mary K. "Too Many Honorables?". Washington Life. Archived from the original on January 1, 2016. At one end of the chamber of the Senate is a dais from which the presiding officer presides. The lower tier of the dais is used by clerks and other officials. One hundred desks are arranged in the chamber in a semicircular pattern and are divided by a wide central aisle. The Democratic Party traditionally sits to the presiding officer's right, and the Republican Party traditionally sits to the presiding officer's left, regardless of which party has a majority of seats. [41] The House of Representatives has impeached sixteen officials, of whom seven were convicted (one resigned before the Senate could complete the trial). [74] Only three presidents have been impeached: Andrew Johnson in 1868, Bill Clinton in 1998, and Donald Trump in 2019 and 2021. The trials of Johnson, Clinton and both Trump trials ended in acquittal; in Johnson's case, the Senate fell one vote short of the two-thirds majority required for conviction. Senate Chamber Desks – Overview". United States Senate. Archived from the original on October 26, 2020 . Retrieved September 2, 2017.

Yglesias, Matthew (December 17, 2019). "American democracy's Senate problem, explained". Vox . Retrieved February 6, 2023. Critics [ who?] contend the Senate's structure gives states with smaller populations the same amount of influence as states with high populations, making the chamber "non-democratic". [75] The disparity in population between the most and least populous states has grown since the 18th century. In 1790, Virginia had approximately ten times the population of Rhode Island, while in 2020, California had approximately 70 times the population of Wyoming. Also, people living in the District of Columbia and in U.S. territories are represented in the Senate by non-voting delegates. [76] [77] One analysis of democracies found that only Argentina and Brazil's upper chambers deviate further from the one person, one vote principle than the U.S. Senate does. [78] Critics, such as Elizabeth Rusch, argue voters from small states have disproportionate influence and benefit from disproportionate amounts of federal funding [79] when compared to voters from larger states. [80] This disparity in representation between large and small states has increasingly favored Republicans since the 1960s, [81] [82] [83] with David Wasserman estimating in 2018 that Democrats would need to keep winning the popular vote by more than 6% to maintain control of the Senate. [84] See also Mann, Robert. The Walls of Jericho: Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, Richard Russell and the Struggle for Civil Rights. Harcourt Brace, 1996

By tradition, seniority is a factor in the selection of physical offices and in party caucuses' assignment of committees. When senators have been in office for the same length of time, a number of tiebreakers are used, including comparing their former government service and then their respective state population. [38]

a b "Stevens could keep seat in Senate". Anchorage Daily News. October 28, 2009. Archived from the original on May 28, 2009. The remaining thirty-eight states provide for gubernatorial appointments, "with the appointed senator serving the balance of the term or until the next statewide general election". [25] :8–9Rusch, Elizabeth (2020). You call this democracy?: how to fix our government and deliver power to the people. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 978-0-358-17692-3. OCLC 1124772479. Recess Appointments FAQ" (PDF). US Senate, Congressional Research Service. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 29, 2017 . Retrieved November 20, 2007. Joseph S. Friedman, undergraduate student (March 30, 2009). "The Rapid Sequence of Events Forcing the Senate's Hand: A Reappraisal of the Seventeenth Amendment, 1890–1913". Curej – College Undergraduate Research Electronic Journal (93). Archived from the original on July 24, 2019. Wilson, Woodrow. Congressional Government. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1885; also 15th ed. 1900, repr. by photoreprint, Transaction books, 2002.

Jentleson, Adam (April 12, 2021). "How to Stop the Minority-Rule Doom Loop". The Atlantic . Retrieved February 6, 2023. Zelizer, Julian E. On Capitol Hill: The Struggle to Reform Congress and its Consequences, 1948–2000 (2006)Stewart, Charles; Reynolds, Mark (January 1, 1990). "Television Markets and U.S. Senate Elections". Legislative Studies Quarterly. 15 (4): 495–523. doi: 10.2307/439894. JSTOR 439894. Hoebeke, C. H. The Road to Mass Democracy: Original Intent and the Seventeenth Amendment. Transaction Books, 1995. (Popular elections of senators) Comiskey, Michael. Seeking Justices: The Judging of Supreme Court Nominees U. Press of Kansas, 2004.