Budapest Post

Cum Deo pro Patria et Libertate
Budapest, Europe and world news

Kamala Harris Is the Decider

Kamala Harris Is the Decider

With a 50–50 split in the Senate, Harris is poised to have final say over crucial decisions in the coming years.
Kamala Harris’s vice presidency was already shaping up to be a uniquely consequential one. Now Democratic control of the Senate has propelled her to the front of the political scene, where she’ll be breaking ties and giving President Joe Biden’s legislative agenda a chance at life.

Being part of the president’s deliberative process is already a major step for a vice president—before Walter Mondale, the office lacked any precedent or model for West Wing power-sharing. Now Biden and Harris may offer a vision of an even more empowered vice president, able to champion legislation herself, use her bully pulpit, and potentially break ties to protect her own policy priorities. No vice president has done all of that before, but Harris could.

An evenly split Senate is rare, but party leaders have worked out power-sharing agreements before to ensure smooth operations, most recently after the 2000 election. Tie-breaking votes are more common (vice presidents have cast them 268 times), and have happened more frequently in the past 20 years than they used to.

That uptick coincided with the emergence of the modern vice presidency, Joel Goldstein, a vice-presidential scholar, told me. Though originally considered a legislative officer, since Richard Nixon’s term, the vice president has served primarily as a member of the executive branch. Modern veeps rarely spend time in the Senate, except on ceremonial occasions.

The partisan makeup of the chamber also lends itself to more ties, Goldstein said: Former Vice President Dick Cheney cast most of his eight votes during his first term, when the Senate was either evenly split or closely divided. The closest the Senate ever got to a tie while Biden was vice president was from 2011 to 2013, with 53 Democrats and 47 Republicans—and he never cast a tie-breaking vote.

Ties are also more common because of the sorting of parties into homogenous ideological groups, Goldstein told me. “The Senate is more evenly split, and the fact that politics has become increasingly polarized” means that fewer senators are willing to cross party lines, and more contentious votes are taken. In addition, the slow rollback of the filibuster means that fewer actions require more than a simple majority—which a vice president can help achieve. Of the 13 ties Mike Pence had to break, half were to confirm Cabinet-level, judicial, or ambassadorial nominations—votes that vice presidents hadn’t had to cast before, because nominations were less disputed. That collection includes the votes to confirm Betsy DeVos as secretary of education in 2017 and Jonathan Allen Kobes as a federal circuit judge in 2018. In each case, increased partisanship set up the vice president to play a major role in advancing the administration’s goals.

Harris may have to break even more ties than Pence did—especially on Cabinet picks, coronavirus-relief bills, and electoral reforms, all of which are priorities for the Democrats, as my colleague Elaine Godfrey has reported. Harris may end up being the public face of these deliberations—unless relatively moderate senators such as Joe Manchin, Susan Collins, or Lisa Murkowski cross party lines.

Harris will be constrained by loyalty to Biden on these votes; television shows such as Veep and The West Wing have conjured images of rogue vice presidents turning on their governing partners for key votes, but that has rarely happened—only one vice president, John C. Calhoun, has broken a tie by voting against the president, dooming Andrew Jackson’s nomination of Martin Van Buren to be the ambassador to Great Britain. Calhoun, who chose not to break a tie on a different judicial nomination in order to stymie Jackson, also holds the record for most ties broken.

A vice president voting against a president’s wishes would have been more likely in the 18th and 19th century, Goldstein told me, because deputies weren’t always loyal to the president, either because they weren’t from the same party (like Adams and Jefferson) or because they weren’t in the president’s inner circle (like Kennedy and Johnson). Neither is true for Harris. She hopes to follow Biden’s example as vice president, a Harris aide told me, acting as a full governing partner rather than sticking to a limited set of portfolio issues. (The aide spoke on the condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to discuss administration matters on the record.)

And though vice presidents cast tie-breaking votes as representatives of the administration, they can still claim those votes as part of their political résumés: Should a new version of the CARES Act or the Voting Rights Act face a tie in the Senate, Harris could claim responsibility for its passage.

There is a downside to more tie-breaking votes: Harris will have to keep her calendar clear to actually cast those votes—and finicky congressional schedules might make that a nuisance. That logistical hurdle might complicate meetings abroad after the pandemic subsides. And there’s also a potential new problem: If Chief Justice John Roberts opts out of presiding over the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump, Harris, as the Senate’s presiding officer, could occupy another visible, though vexing, spot in the chamber she just left. But the choice would be hers.
AI Disclaimer: An advanced artificial intelligence (AI) system generated the content of this page on its own. This innovative technology conducts extensive research from a variety of reliable sources, performs rigorous fact-checking and verification, cleans up and balances biased or manipulated content, and presents a minimal factual summary that is just enough yet essential for you to function as an informed and educated citizen. Please keep in mind, however, that this system is an evolving technology, and as a result, the article may contain accidental inaccuracies or errors. We urge you to help us improve our site by reporting any inaccuracies you find using the "Contact Us" link at the bottom of this page. Your helpful feedback helps us improve our system and deliver more precise content. When you find an article of interest here, please look for the full and extensive coverage of this topic in traditional news sources, as they are written by professional journalists that we try to support, not replace. We appreciate your understanding and assistance.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Declining Beer Consumption Signals Cultural Shift in Germany
Emails Leaked: How Passenger Luggage Became a Side Income for Airport Workers
Polish MEP: “Dear Leftists - China is laughing at you, Russia is laughing, India is laughing”
Western Europe Records Hottest June on Record
BRICS Expands Membership with Indonesia and Ten New Partner Countries
Elon Musk Founds a Party Following a Poll on X: "You Wanted It – You Got It!"
China’s Central Bank Consults European Peers on Low-Rate Strategies
France Requests Airlines to Cut Flights at Paris Airports Amid Planned Air Traffic Controller Strike
Poland Implements Border Checks Amid Growing Migration Tensions
Emirates Airline Expands Market Share with New $20 Million Campaign
Amazon Reaches Milestone with Deployment of One Millionth Robot
Yulia Putintseva Calls for Spectator Ejection at Wimbledon Over Safety Concerns
House Oversight Committee Subpoenas Former Jill Biden Aide Amid Investigation into Alleged Concealment of President Biden's Cognitive Health
Amazon Reaches Major Automation Milestone with Over One Million Robots
Extreme Heat Wave Sweeps Across Europe, Hitting Record Temperatures
Meta Announces Formation of Ambitious AI Unit, Meta Superintelligence Labs
Robots Compete in Football Tournament in China Amid Injuries
China Unveils Miniature Insect-Like Surveillance Drone
Marc Marquez Claims Victory at Dutch Grand Prix Amidst Family Misfortune
Germany Votes to Suspend Family Reunification for Asylum Seekers
Budapest Pride Parade Draws 200,000 Participants Amid Government Ban
Southern Europe Experiences Extreme Heat
Xiaomi's YU7 SUV Launch Garners Record Pre-Orders Amid Market Challenges
Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez's Lavish Wedding in Venice
Russia Launches Largest Air Assault on Ukraine Since Invasion
Massive Anti-Government Protests Erupt in Belgrade
Iran Executes Alleged Israeli Spies and Arrests Hundreds Amid Post-War Crackdown
Hungary's Prime Minister Criticizes NATO's Role in Ukraine
EU TO HUNGARY: LET THEM PRIDE OR PREP FOR SHADE. ORBÁN TO EU: STAY IN YOUR LANE AND FIX YOUR OWN MESS.
Hungarian Scientist to Conduct 30 Research Experiments on the International Space Station
NATO Members Agree to 5% Defense Spending Target by 2035
NATO Leaders Endorse Plan for Increased Defence Spending
U.S. Crude Oil Prices Drop Below $65 Amid Market Volatility
International Astronaut Team Launched to Space Station
Macron and Merz: Europe must arm itself in an unstable world
Germany and Italy Under Pressure to Repatriate $245bn of Gold from US Vaults
Iran Intensifies Crackdown on Alleged Mossad Operatives After Sabotage Claims
Trump Praises Iran’s ‘Very Weak’ Response After U.S. Strikes and Presses Israel to Pursue Peace
Oil Prices Set to Surge After US Strikes Iran
BA and Singapore Airlines Cancel Dubai Flights Amid Middle East Tensions
Trump Faces Backlash from MAGA Base Over Iran Strikes
Meta Bets $14 B on Alexandr Wang to Drive AI Ambitions
FedEx Founder Fred Smith, ‘Heart and Soul’ of the Company, Dies at 80
Chinese Factories Shift Away from U.S. Amid Trump‑Era Tariffs
Pimco Seizes Opportunity in Japan’s Dislocated Bond Market
Labubu Doll Drives Pop Mart to Status as China’s Most Valuable Toy Maker
Global Coal Demand Defies Paris Accord Goals
United States Conducts Precision Strikes on Iran’s Nuclear Sites
US strikes Iran nuclear sites, Trump says
Telegram Founder: I Will Leave My Fortune to Over 100 of My Children
×