The U.S. Senate unanimously passed a resolution appointing Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., as president pro tempore Monday evening. Leahy was elected to the post shortly after the death of Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii.
As Senate president pro tem, Leahy is the third in the line of succession after the House Speaker and the vice president for the presidency under the Constitution. The role of the pro tem title is largely symbolic and it is held by the most senior member of the Senate. Leahy, 72, has been a member of the Senate since 1975.
Leahy will be publicly sworn in for the position Tuesday morning, and in the next few days, the Senate leadership will reshuffle chairmanships.
Leahy, who is currently chair of the Judiciary Committee, is the No. 2 senator on the Appropriations Committee. Inouye was chair of Appropriations and Leahy’s rise to the No. 1 spot is widely speculated. If he takes over Appropriations, Leahy would have to relinquish his chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee, which may fall to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who is next in line according to Politico.com.
David Carle, the communications director for Leahy, said the senator is not commenting on speculation about changes in the leadership of the two committees.
Leahy issued a statement honoring Inouye, 88, who died of respiratory complications on Monday at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Inouye represented Hawaii in the Senate for nine terms.
“A pioneer who helped forge Hawaii’s emergence as a state, he was his beloved home’s first member of Congress,” Leahy said. “We worked together on so many matters, large and small, and over so many years that it would be difficult to catalogue that list. For decades I have sat at the desk he inscribed, and he escorted me to the well of the Senate to be sworn in for my current term. A man of few words, most importantly he was a man of his word. I have always admired his diligence, his character and his willing bipartisanship as a legislator.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., called Inouye a “giant among senators who treated everyone with respect and dignity.”
