The Tennessee State Senate is the upper house of the Tennessee General Assembly, the formal name of the Tennessee state legislature.
The Tennessee Senate, according to the state constitution of 1870, is composed of 33 members. They are to be elected from districts of substantially equal population. According to the constitution a county is not to be joined to a portion of another county for purposes of creating a district; this provision has been overridden by the rulings of the United States Supreme Court in Baker v. Carr (369 US 182 1962) and Reynolds v. Sims (337 U.S. 356 1964) The Tennessee constitution has been amended to allow that if these rulings are ever changed or reversed, that a referendum may be held to allow the senate districts to be drawn on a basis other than substansially equal population.
Until 1966, Tennessee state senators served two-year terms. That year the system was changed to allow four year terms. In that year, senators in even-numbered districts were elected to two-year terms and those in odd-numbered districts were elected to four-year terms. This created a staggered system in which only half of the senate is up for election at any one time. Districts are to be sequentially and consecutively numbered; the scheme basically runs from east to west and north to south. The senate elects one of its own members as Speaker; the Speaker automatically becomes Lieutenant Governor of Tennessee. Since 1971, the office of Speaker of the Senate and Lieutenant Governor has been held by John S. Wilder of Braden.
Wilder has traditionally depended on the support of both Republicans and Democrats for his support; therefore the Tennessee Senate is currently organized on a rather bi-partisan basis with members of both parties serving as committee chairs, an unusual situation in a body elected on a partisan basis. The body elected in November 2004 consists of 17 Republicans and 16 Democrats, the Republicans' first elected majority since Reconstruction; a brief majority in the 1990s was the result of two outgoing senators switching parties. It seems likely that the reconstituted body will again elect Wilder its speaker, however.
