Harris sets vice presidential Senate tiebreaker record with 32nd vote

Vice President Kamala Harris just entered the record books.

Harris, who will be in office for at least another 12 months and is seeking reelection, has broken John C. Calhoun’s record for tiebreaking votes in the Senate at 32. The history-making vote was 51-50 on Tuesday to advance President Joe Biden’s nominee, Loren AliKhan, to be a U.S. district judge for the District of Columbia.

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Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) voted no on Biden’s nominee, joining with all Republicans, which set the stage for Harris’s decisive vote.

Calhoun’s record of 31 tiebreakers stood for nearly 200 years, as his term as vice president ran from 1825 to 1832. Harris raced to match and then exceed his tally thanks to a 50-50 Senate during her first two years in office, followed by one that was technically 51-49 in the Democrats’ favor but has been hampered by absences and defections.

Vice presidents, as the president of the Senate, cast tiebreaking votes when the upper chamber is deadlocked, though it’s a fairly rare occurrence that has happened less than 300 times since the nation’s founding. Joe Biden and Dan Quayle, for example, never cast a tiebreaker during their vice presidencies.

Harris, by contrast, has had to cast so many tiebreakers that some feel the practice distracts her from her other duties. Other than Calhoun, Harris, and John Adams, no vice president has cast more than 19 tiebreaking votes in office.

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Among the more notable tiebreakers Harris has made included votes to approve the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan stimulus legislation and the $891 billion Inflation Reduction Act. She cast four tiebreakers in a single day on May 11, 2022.

Along with her frequent tiebreakers, Harris enjoys a high profile for a vice president as she would become the commander in chief if Biden, 81, cannot complete a first or second term.