Therese Murray is an American politician who served as President of the Massachusetts Senate from 2007 to 2015. Murray, a Democrat, was the first woman to lead a house of the Massachusetts General Court. She represented the Plymouth and Barnstable district in the Massachusetts Senate from 1993 to 2015.
Murray in 2008
Murray speaking at an event in Sandwich, Massachusetts in 2012
President of the Massachusetts Senate
The president of the Massachusetts Senate is the presiding officer. Unlike the United States Congress, in which the vice president of the United States is the ex officio president of the United States Senate, in Massachusetts, the president of the Senate is elected from and by the senators. The president, therefore, typically comes from the majority party, and the president is then the de facto leader of that party.
President of the Massachusetts Senate
Image: Thomas Cushing, Member of Continental Congress
Image: Samuel Adams by John Singleton Copley
Image: Samuel Phillips