Vice President Kamala Harris Is a Pace-Setter for Tiebreaking Senate Votes - Bloomberg
It’s been almost two centuries since a vice president has cast so many decisive votes on Capitol Hill, and her pace reveals a lot about how a 50-50 Senate actually works.
"Vice President Kamala Harris voted six times to break Senate ties this week. That brings her total to 23 ties broken, a record pace. She’s already third all-time, behind only John C. Calhoun (31 from 1825-1832) and John Adams (29 from 1789-1797).
"What she’s voted on tells an important story about the Senate. None of it has been regular legislation. It’s all on measures regarding the budget or other fiscal matters falling under the rubric of reconciliation, and then on nominations and procedural votes on nominations. Contrast that to George H.W. Bush when he was vice president in the 1980s: Six of his seven tiebreaking Senate votes were on amendments to bills or motions relating to amendments.". . .
. . .On the other hand, ties on nomination votes are now far more frequent. Nominations draw far more partisan opposition now than they used to, and after the Democratic majority changed Senate procedures in October 2013 to end filibusters for most nominations, 50 votes plus the vice-president’s has been all it takes to move a nomination forward.
The second point here is about RINOs — those relatively moderate conservatives accused by critics of being Republicans in Name Only — and their moderately liberal Democratic cousins. The point? They basically don’t exist. That’s why there are so many tie votes in the present Congress. With 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans, there are going to be a lot of 50-50 votes, with all the Democrats lining up against all the Republicans.". . .
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