From 1997 to 2001 McConnell was chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the body charged with securing electoral victories for Republicans. On February 12, 1999, he was one of fifty senators to vote to convict and remove Bill Clinton from office. He was first elected as Majority Whip in the 108th Congress and was unanimously re-elected on November 17, 2004. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, did not seek re-election in the 2006 elections. In November, after Republicans lost control of the Senate, they elected McConnell as the Minority Leader. After Republicans took control of the Senate following the 2014 Senate elections, McConnell became the Senate Majority Leader. In June 2018 he became the longest-serving Senate Republican leader in the history of the United States. McConnell is the second Kentuckian to serve as a party leader in the Senate (after Alben W. Barkley led the Democrats from 1937 to 1949) and is the longest-serving U.S. senator from Kentucky in history.