Kamala Harris, who made history as the first woman or person of color to serve as vice president, made history again Wednesday as she matched the record for most tiebreaking votes in the U.S. Senate.
The vote, her 31st, advanced the nomination of Kalpana Kotagal to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The only other vice president to cast so many was John C. Calhoun, who served as vice president from 1825 to 1832.
“It is a moment and I think that there’s still so much left that we have yet to do,” Harris told reporters afterwards.
“My mother gave me great advice, which is that I may be the first to do many things,” she added. “I’m going to make sure I’m not the last.”
Unlike Calhoun, who spent eight years accumulating his total, Harris tied the record in two and a half years. It’s a reflection of her unique circumstances, with a narrowly divided Senate and a sharply partisan atmosphere.
“It really says more about our time, and our political climate, than it does about anything else,” said Joel K. Goldstein, a vice presidential historian. “Our politics is so polarized that, even on the sort of matters that in the past would have flown through, it takes the vice president to cast a tiebreaking vote.”
The occasion was hardly memorable or particularly ceremonial. Harris spent only a few minutes in the chamber, reciting a brief script to record her vote, and then received congratulations from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat.
Harris ties record for breaking ties
Part of the vice president’s role is to break tie votes in the Senate. In her third year in office, Kamala Harris has broken 31 deadlocks, matching John C. Calhoun — who took nearly eight years to set the record while serving under John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson.
