The selection of a cabinet is expected to be contentious, with the main political blocs jockeying over the deputy prime minister posts and the leadership of more than two dozen ministries.
It hadn't even got to 11pm before the campaign post-mortems and leadership speculation began.
The speaker's aides said to expect dissenters to be stripped of committee chairmanships and leadership posts, and the extra pay they bring.
But beneath the smiles was considerable discomfort among the Republican senators who lost their cherished committee chairmanships and leadership posts after Senator James M. Jeffords of Vermont defected from the party, shifting control of the Senate to the Democrats.
It remains to be seen whether the party can become a lasting force in German politics, in the same way that the Green Party emerged from the environmental movement in the 1980s, or whether, like so many other issue-driven parties in the past, it will self-destruct amid squabbles over doctrine and leadership posts.
The party did have female lawmakers in the first parliament formed after the revolution – which has since been dissolved – but men have completely monopolized the decision-making bodies and leadership posts of the party and the Brotherhood itself.
A staff member for one of the four senators said the group's "key concern was the absence of Latino leadership among the state's key leadership posts" and said the group would go so far as push to install a Latino majority leader — a move that would be a heavy political lift for four senators to achieve.
To avoid skewing the results, they eliminated, among others, members in top leadership posts and presidential candidates.
More than that, two members -- Mr. Spano and Guy J. Velella, a Republican -- hold leadership posts and are part of the Senate majority leader's inner circle.
Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, a Shiite, appears within reach of securing another term as Iraq's leader, but there are still many unresolved questions about which constituencies would claim other leadership posts and control of key ministries.
