Talk:List of current United States Senators

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Archive 1

No lead section[edit]

The top of this article notes that it has no lead section (among other things it has been flagged for). Somebody could simply type that there are 100 senators, two from each state, but I would think that most people visiting the page know that already. In my opinion a lead section is not that important considering the page title says it is a list, but it should still have at least a small lead section if that is required of all Wikipedia pages. EvanJ35 (talk) 16:35, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Tim Scott election year[edit]

Scott will be a class 3 senator, since he's replacing DeMint, but his appointment will be up in 2015, because state law requires a special election be held for the seat in 2014. So, Scott's entry in this table is inconsistent with the key, which indicates that class 3's terms expire in 2017. Technically this might still be true, since he's really serving out the remainder of DeMint's term, but I think it's misleading. Should we add a footnote or another column (e.g., next election year) to the table to represent this? 24.1.94.199 (talk) 04:30, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Sanders counted as Dem, but King as Independent[edit]

In the count of Senators by party, Sanders is counted as a Democrat, as explained by the footnote "caucus [sic] with the Democrats." But according to several news stories from Nov. 2012, Angus King likewise caucuses with the Democrats. Shouldn't they be counted consistently? Either both should be counted as Independent, or both as Democrats. Ishboyfay (talk) 21:49, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Experience[edit]

The experience column should simply list all significant experience for each Senator, or list both private and public sector experience for each Senator. Or maybe there should be a column for private sector experience and another column for public sector experience. In any case, both public and private sector experience should be treated equally per NPOV. Sparkie82 (t•c) 02:41, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Just noticed that this talk page is relatively inactive, so I'll just start working on fixing it myself now. Sparkie82 (t•c) 17:26, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

This section may have value, but "no private sector experience" seems intended as a criticism and raises NPOV concerns. Croctotheface (talk) 20:52, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't know if it's a negative or a positive, it probably depends on the reader's POV. When I came upon the article, several Senators had "no public sector experience" in their experience column, again, not sure how readers would view that, but I wanted to be fair either way. It seems like useful information for the reader so, as the case may be, we say "no ______ sector experience". Sparkie82 (t•c) 18:32, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

At the very least, we should find a way to phrase it that doesn't sound like a charge made by an opposing politician. Saying that an opponent has "never worked in the private sector" is a fairly common line of attack. Even if it were not, it sounds quite negative; it implies that ideally, a politician should have this sort of experience but does not. Croctotheface (talk) 06:32, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

And to clarify, my position is that, as it is currently, the article is not neutral and should be reverted until we find a way to phrase this concept that is consistent with our NPOV policy. Croctotheface (talk) 06:34, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

I reverted it back. I see three options:

1) Don't mention information about private and public experience.

2) Mention both public and private experience.

3) Split the column into "Private experience" and "Public experience"

I don't like option (1) because it means that we'd leave out useful information. We can mention both public and private as I said above or split it into two columns. Sparkie82 (t•c) 01:44, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

I appreciate the reversion; hopefully this is a solvable issue. I don't think it's necessary to call attention specifically to the presence or absence of "private sector experience." Truly, "no private sector experience" is a line right out of political attack ads. It's too loaded to say or even imply, especially if the only benefit is calling the readers attention to something that they can infer from the presence of only public sector entries in the "significant experience" column. Croctotheface (talk) 09:58, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

The "no private sector experience" comments are ridiculous, flout the POV rules, and, more importantly, are inaccurate. Numerous people are listed as having "no private sector experience" when their own Wikipedia pages say otherwise--Mark Begich started an under-18 nightclub and did real estate, and Kay Hagan worked in the private sector in major law firms, for example. Odd how both of them are up for election this year and "no private sector experience" is a conservative attack point. I understand some entries previously had "no private sector experience" listed before Sparkie took the lead on this, but that probably was just vandalism. The inaccuracies are so blatant on this page that I'm going ahead and removing them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cat spasms (talk • contribs) 03:47, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

They've now been removed. As an additional comment, frankly, when you think about it, saying someone DOESN'T have a certain kind of experience opens a can of worms, as that requires a higher burden of proof. I think that's why the Mark Begich and Kay Hagan mixups happen--both arguably had real private sector experience, but that would a) depend on your definitions of "private sector" and "experience" and b) weren't necessarily the most prolific aspects of their careers. For verification purposes, it is much easier to simply say the experience we know they do have. So, let's please not reinsert those changes. I'll be watching this page. Cat spasms (talk) 03:58, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Cat, please assume good faith when you edit on Wikipedia. Sparkie82 (t•c) 06:30, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

The missing items of experience for Begich and Hagan that you mention above were not on their WP pages or senate.gov pages when I made my edits back in May and I did not have any other sources for them. I'm not sure why you mentioned them here but failed to add them to the article. I'll add them myself. Sparkie82 (t•c) 06:30, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

I added Begich's experience, however, I couldn't find a source for Hagan's law firm experience. I did find a source that said Hagan worked as banker, so I added that. Sparkie82 (t•c) 06:40, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

"No private sector experience" has got to go, it's obvious POV, unverifiable, and probably wrong in most of the cases. How can anyone verify that Senator X didn't work in a grocery store for 2 weeks when he was 16? Toohool (talk) 02:28, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

As I mentioned before, when I first began editing this article, there were entries that said, "No public sector experience", however, there were no complementary entries for "No private sector experience" where applicable, which seemed POV to me, so I just added the latter for balance to make the article NPOV. I don't know if it's a negative or a positive, it probably depends on the reader's POV. Apparently, when some readers come across this article and see "No X experience", it triggers a feeling of bias (not understanding that the "No X experience" entries are included irrespective of whether the "X" is "public sector" or "private sector"). The fact that a Senator has no X experience is entirely verifiable by examining a complete bio for the Senator. Unfortunately, many of them are sometimes less than forthcoming in their resumes and lie by omission by leaving off some experience that they'd rather the voters didn't know about. However, other sources eventually come forward with all the facts. Sparkie82 (t•c) 06:30, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

I think the best way to resolve this is to have separate columns for private and public experience, and include all known experience from available sources. If there is no known "X sector experience", that entry can simply be left blank until the information is known. Sparkie82 (t•c) 06:30, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Done. (Columns: Private Sector Experience and Prior Public Office/Position) Sparkie82 (t•c) 04:20, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Elizabeth Warren[edit]

Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts is missing from this listing.DOMICH (talk) 19:08, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Reverted edit by blocked account SleepCovo[edit]

Reverted the edit but there were some intervening edits that need to be added back. Most of intervening edits seem to be photo updates (which are usually edits by the senators' staff anyway). Sparkie82 (t•c) 16:17, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Bernie Sanders affiliation[edit]

While Bernie Sanders is running for the Democratic nomination for President, his official Senate designation is still Independent. For instance, from a 12/22/2015 press release from his Senate office (and this pattern is consistently followed):

 WASHINGTON, Dec. 18  – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) issued the following statement today opposing the omnibus and tax extenders bills:

Similarly, official Senate websites include the independent designation despite his current campaign. His 2018 FEC Senate filings list him as an independent. — Preceding unsigned comment added by PantsB (talk • contribs) 22:07, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Private Sector Experience[edit]

I removed this column because it is blank for half the senators (which obviously does not mean that they never worked but that no research has been done, but it is better for the column to be removed until such research is done, instead of having so many blank entries) and contains arbitrary content for the other half, for example: Chris Coons was listed as a "volunteer", Bill Nelson was listed as an "astronaut" even though NASA is not a private company and he had joined a mission because he was a congressman, Dick Durbin was listed as a "meatpacking plant laborer" even though he only did this while he was in high school (at least what he did afterwards was also listed), Chuck Grassley was listed as a "farmer, factory worker" while he did these jobs part-time when he was young and afterwards became a teacher of political science, which was not mentioned (this could be potentially libellous), Joni Ernst, a retired soldier with degrees in psychology and public administration was listed as a "farmer", Jim Inhofe is the only army veteran to be listed as an army veteran (what is the relationship of the army with the private sector, I cannot tell), Jeff Merkley's position as a technology worker for the Department of Defence was listed as Private Sector Experience, while his position as Congressional Budget Office was listed as Prior Public Office, Pat Toomey was listed as a "bank currency swap trader" where "banking executive" would perfectly do, Orrin Hatch was listed as a "janitor, construction worker, bishop, lawyer" while he was just a lawyer (when he was a student he worked part time as a janitor and construction worker / his position as a bishop in the LDS church cannot be described as Private Sector Experience), Bernie Sanders was listed as a "carpenter" (not mentioned in his article) and as a "filmmaker" (as a result of a 30-minute documentary he made in the 1970s), Mark Warner was listed as a "broker of mobile phone franchise licenses", which, I am certain, can easily be replaced by "businessman", Tim Kaine was listed, among other things, as a "missionary", which is not Private Sector Experience. Also, many of them were listed as "president of a company", "director of nonprofits" etc., without any mention of the companies' names.

In short, if you would like this column to be added again, please re-write it: do not re-add it as it was.--The Traditionalist (talk) 11:36, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestions. I have applied your corrections to the restored table with these comments: Under US law, religious workers are part of the private sector (with a few exceptions, such as military chaplains); experience was included in either the public or private sector irrespective of the pay received or the reason for engaging in the activity; changed Toomey's title to "currency trader"; removed experience that occurred during high school, but incuded experience occurring after high school; the convention that has been used for private experience was to list titles, but not specific organizations (however that practice is subject to discussion, of course, if there is good reason to change it); replacing blanks with n/a. Sparkie82 (t•c) 17:47, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

Also, I've begun to add links to the titles under Private Experience since most of those in the Public Sector side had links. Sparkie82 (t•c) 17:53, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

Incorrect or outdated Senator party count[edit]

The lead image that shows how many Senators of the Democratic or Republican (or Independent) parties doesn't quite match the content of the list of Senators below. I noticed that, on the map, North Carolina is colored blue to indicate two to indicate two Democratic Senators, but in the content of the article North Carolina's Senators are both listed as Republicans, so NC should be colored Red, not Blue. There might be other inconsistencies, or this could be the only one, but this is the one I noticed and I just thought I should point it out. 72.192.119.52 (talk) 17:09, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 14 May 2016[edit]

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Army 2602:30A:2EE7:8F30:3C70:1A9A:9FCF:2BDF (talk) 15:40, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

Not done: as you have not requested a change.
If you want to suggest a change, please request this in the form "Please replace XXX with YYY" or "Please add ZZZ between PPP and QQQ".
Please also cite reliable sources to back up your request, without which no information should be added to, or changed in, any article. - Arjayay (talk) 15:42, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

Table is WAY too large[edit]

The width of this table is way too large for the page. I would suggest removing three fields: "Private sector experience", "Party", and "Education". Although it could easily be found, IMO, their jobs aren't that important for this list, either is their education. If visitors want to know about the senator, they can go to their article. The "Party" field is just repetitive of the first column (which is a color and is labeled at the top). The table now is way too overly detailed. I would also recommend either getting rid of the color scheme in the "class" section or removing the "Seat Up" column... it's repetitive. Simplifying the "Public Sector Experience" column cleans up the box well. My following proposal would be something along the example below:

	State	Class	Portrait	Name	Born	Public Sector Experience	Assumed Office	Seat Up
	Massachusetts	1		Blumenthal, RichardRichard Blumenthal	(1973-12-03) December 3, 1973 (age 43)	Connecticut Attorney General, Senate, and House of Representatives	January 3, 2013; 4 years ago (2013-01-03)	2018

If they hold too many public sector jobs, then we could say something like "various U.S. (or state) government offices". Thoughts? Corkythehornetfan 09:08, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

Todd Young - Age?[edit]

The age given in the Senators elect table seems to be wrong, his personal article claims he was born 72 which would make him 44 not 82 years old?? --5.146.47.75 (talk) 20:25, 9 November 2016 (UTC)