---
kind: "section"
citation: "2 U.S.C. § 1"
title: "2"
title_heading: "The Congress"
number: "1"
heading: "Time for election of Senators"
release: "119-102"
url: "https://uscodex.org/usc/2/1"
units:
  - "Chapter 1 — Election of Senators and Representatives"
---

# §1. Time for election of Senators


At the regular election held in any [State](/usc/2/4556.md?p=1) next preceding the expiration of the term for which any Senator was elected to represent such [State](/usc/2/4556.md?p=1) in Congress, at which election a Representative to Congress is regularly by law to be chosen, a United States Senator from said [State](/usc/2/4556.md?p=1) shall be elected by the people thereof for the term commencing on the 3d day of January next thereafter.


## Source credit

(June 4, 1914, ch. 103, § 1, 38 Stat. 384; June 5, 1934, ch. 390, § 3, 48 Stat. 879.)

## Notes

### Editorial Notes

### Amendments

1934—Act June 5, 1934, substituted “3d day of January” for “fourth day of March”.

### Constitutional Provisions

The first section of Amendment XX to the Constitution provides in part: “* * * the terms of Senators and Representatives [shall end] at noon on the 3d day of January, of the years in which such terms would have ended if this article had not been ratified; and the terms of their successors shall then begin.”

Time for election of Senators, see Const. Art. I, § 4, cl. 1.

Vacancies in the Senate, see Const. Amend. XVII.