Inouye expected to take over as president pro tem

Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), now the longest-serving member of the Senate, is expected to take over as president pro tempore in the wake of Sen. Robert Byrd’s (D-W.Va.) death.
 
The president pro tempore is third in line to the presidency after the vice president and the Speaker of the House.
 
President pro tempore is an elected position but, by tradition, it goes to the senator of the majority party with the longest record of continuous service.

Inouye’s election to the post is widely considered a formality. A spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Inouye would take over the position.

Inouye entered the 111th Congress as the third-ranking senior member of the Senate after Byrd and Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), who died in August.
 
Inouye took the oath of office on Jan. 9, 1963. He was born in Honolulu in 1924, before Hawaii became a state
on Jan. 3, 1959. There
is no requirement in the Constitution that the president pro tem be
born in a state. Hawaii was a territory well before Inouye’s birth. 

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), who took office on Jan. 3, 1975, is the next most-senior member of the Senate.
 
Under the Constitution, the president pro tem is empowered to preside over the chamber in the absence of the vice president, who is also designated president of the Senate.

The role is largely ceremonial. Freshmen senators from the majority party usually occupy the chamber’s presiding chair during floor debate.
 
In recent years, the vice president has presided over the chamber only during the most serious occasions or to cast tie-breaking votes.
 
As president pro tem, Inouye will be an ex-officio member of his party’s leadership.

Inouye spokeswoman Lori Hamamoto also said her boss’s accession to the position is a simple formality, adding that she did not know when the ceremony would take place.

— Shane D’Aprile contributed to this report. This article was updated at 11:32 a.m.