Before the office of lieutenant governor was created in 1868, the Senate was presided over by a "speaker."

After the 1988 election of James Carson Gardner, the first Republican lieutenant governor since Reconstruction, Democrats in control of the Senate shifted most of the power held by the lieutenant governor to the senator who is elected president pro tempore (or pro-tem).

The president pro tempore appoints members to standing committees of the Senate, and holds great sway over bills.

By 1874 four African Americans, all Republicans, were in the body as Democrats had already regained a large majority 38 to 12.

[2] In 1920, Loula Roberts Platt, became the first woman to run for a seat in the state senate.