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This the seniority rules applied on this page are the modern rules. According to the Chronological list, which is this page's only source for the seniority rules, the earliest date the current rules can be traced to is 1959. All senators who joined the Senate before then are listed in that very source in a completely different order from that which is listed here. -Rrius (talk) 19:05, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The article seems confused as to what seniority rules to apply. The most obvious source we have for seniority, the Chronological list accessible from the US Senate official website, provides the following explanation of its criteria.
"From 1789 to 1958, senators whose terms began on the same day are listed alphabetically. Beginning in 1959, senators are listed according to commencement of first Senate term by order of service, determined by former service in order as senator, vice president, House member, cabinet secretary, governor, and then by state population. This latter system for calculating order of service has been used by the modern Senate for many years for the purposes of office assignment. It is unclear just when the Senate first began applying such criteria."
However the official numbering in the list may itself be anachronistic, to some extent. Even the author of the official list, who would presumably have access to all the extant records of the Senate, was not clear when the modern seniority rules were first applied. They may therefore predate 1959. I also recall seeing somewhere an explanation that, where two Senators from the same state had the same seniority date, the senior senator was the one with the shorter term. That principle is not followed by the official list.
In the absence of another source, confirming what rules and customs about Senate seniority applied during a particular Congress, it seems best to just follow the official list. Anything else would be substituting our guess, based on no evidence whatever, for something which is at least a source of some credibility. --Gary J (talk) 15:13, 7 January 2011 (UTC) revised --Gary J (talk) 16:22, 7 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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