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The President pro tempore (also referred to as President pro tem) is the second-highest-ranking official of the United States Senate and the highest-ranking senator. The U.S. Constitution states the Vice President of the United States serves ex officio as President of the Senate, and is the highest-ranking official of the Senate even though he or she only votes in the case of a tie. During the Vice President's absence, the President pro tempore is the highest-ranking official in the Senate and may preside over its sessions. The President pro tempore is elected by the Senate; by custom, the President pro tempore is the most senior senator in the majority party. Normally, neither the Vice President of the United States nor the President pro tempore presides; instead, the duty is generally delegated to junior senators to help them learn parliamentary procedure.^[1] The President pro tempore is third in the line of succession to the Presidency, after the Vice President of the United States and the Speaker of the House of Representatives.

The current President pro tempore of the Senate is Robert Byrd (D-West Virginia). He replaced Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), who held the office from January 3, 2003, to January 4, 2007.^[2]

The President pro tempore is an office of the Senate mandated by Article I, section 3 of the Constitution. Although the position is in some ways equivalent to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the powers of the President pro tempore are far more limited. In the Senate, most power rests with party leaders and individual senators, but as the chamber's presiding officer in the absence of the Vice President, the President pro tempore is authorized to perform certain duties, including ruling on points of order. Additionally, the President pro tempore is one of the two authorities to whom declarations of presidential inability or of ability to resume the presidency must be transmitted under the 25th Amendment to the Constitution (The Speaker of the House is the other.) The President pro tempore is third in the line of presidential succession, following the Vice President and the Speaker of the House.^[3] Additional duties include appointment of various Congressional officers, certain commissions, advisory boards, and committees and joint supervision of the congressional page school. The President pro tempore is the designed legal recipient of various reports to the Senate including War Power Act reports under which he or she, jointly with the Speaker, may have the President call Congress back into session. The officeholder is an ex officio member of various boards and commissions. With the Secretary and Sergeant at Arms of the Senate, the President pro tempore maintains order in the use of Senate buildings as per Senate rules.^[4]

The office of President pro tempore was established in 1789 by the Constitution of the United States. Originally, the President pro tempore was appointed on a daily or weekly basis when the Vice President of the United States was not present to preside over the Senate. Until the 1960s, it was common practice for the Vice President to preside over daily Senate sessions, so the President pro tempore rarely presided over the Senate unless the Vice Presidency became vacant.^[4]

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