A state senator is a member of a state's Senate, the upper house in the bicameral legislature of 49 U.S. states, or a legislator in Nebraska's one house State Legislature.
There are typically fewer state senators than there are members of a state's lower house. In the past, this meant that senators represented various geographic regions within a state, regardless of the population, as a way of balancing the power of the lower house, which was apportioned according to population. This changed in 1963 when the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that state legislatures must apportion seats in both houses according to population. A state senator's job is to represent the people at a higher level than a State Representative.
Famous quotes containing the words state and/or senator:
“A solitary traveller can sleep from state to state, from day to night, from day to day, in the long womb of its controlled interior. It is the cradle that never stops rocking after the lullaby is over. It is the biggest sleeping tablet in the world, and no one need ever swallow the pill, for it swallows them.”
—Lisa St. Aubin de Terán (b. 1953)
“Wags try to invent new stories to tell about the legislature, and end by telling the old one about the senator who explained his unaccustomed possession of a large roll of bills by saying that someone pushed it over the transom while he slept. The expression “It came over the transom,” to explain any unusual good fortune, is part of local folklore.”
—For the State of Montana, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)