who is currently the longest serving member of the senate
Patrick Leahy
title: United States Senate text: "senior senator" is Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who was sworn in January 3, 2015, and is currently 79th in seniority, ahead of senator John Neely Kennedy who was sworn in January 3, 2017, and is currently 95th in seniority. With the 116th Congress, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who will be sworn in on January 3, 2019, will become the most-junior "senior senator", ahead of Martha McSally, who was appointed to replace retiring Jon Kyl . McSally will be sworn in after Sinema on January 3, 2019 . The Senate may expel a senator by a two-thirds vote. Fifteen senators have title: Patrick Leahy text: Patrick Leahy Patrick Joseph Leahy (; born March 31, 1940) is an American politician serving as the senior United States Senator from Vermont, a seat to which he was first elected in 1974. A member of the Democratic Party, Leahy held the position of President pro tempore of the United States Senate from December 17, 2012, to January 6, 2015, and was thus during that time third in the presidential line of succession. Now in his eighth six-year term of office, he is currently (since the December 2012 death of Daniel Inouye) the most senior member of the Senate, and title: United States Senate text: United States Senate The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, which along with the United States House of Representatives—the lower chamber—comprises the legislature of the United States. The composition and powers of the Senate are established by Article One of the United States Constitution. The Senate is composed of senators, each of whom represents a single state in its entirety, with each state being equally represented by two senators, regardless of its population, serving staggered terms of six years; with 50 states currently in the Union, there are 100 U.S. Senators. From 1789 until title: Seniority in the United States Senate text: one senator has served in the same previous role, length of time in that prior office is used to break the tie. For instance, Ben Cardin, Bernie Sanders, Sherrod Brown, Bob Casey, Bob Corker, Claire McCaskill, Amy Klobuchar, Sheldon Whitehouse and Jon Tester took office on January 3, 2007, and the first three senators mentioned had previously served in the House of Representatives. Cardin, having served 20 years, is more senior than Sanders, who served 16 years, who in turn is more senior than Brown who served 14 years. Casey, Corker, McCaskill, Klobuchar, Whitehouse, and Tester rank in that order title: Mitch McConnell text: and was re-elected to the post in 2004. In November 2006, McConnell was elected Senate Minority Leader; he held that post until 2015, when Republicans took control of the Senate and he became Senate Majority Leader. "Time" named McConnell one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2015. In June 2018, McConnell became the longest-serving Republican U.S. Senate leader in the history of the United States. McConnell was known as a pragmatist and moderate Republican early in his political career but veered sharply to the right over time. During his time in the Senate, McConnell gained a