The History Behind Kamala Harris Matching the 191-Year-Old Record for Tiebreaking Votes
In Wednesday, the Senate advanced the nomination of Kalpana Kotagal to be a member of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. It was a relatively ordinary confirmation vote except for one thing: with her vote, Vice President Kamala Harris tied a 191-year-old record for casting the most tiebreaking votes in Congress.
The record had been held by South Carolina’s John C. Calhoun, who made his 31 tiebreaking votes in almost eight years as the vice president for both John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson from 1825-1832. “The tiebreakers of Calhoun’s era were often related to the party division breakdown,” says Daniel Holt, assistant historian of the U.S. Senate Historical Office. “That’s a complicated picture in the 1820s and 1830s, as the two-party system was still developing and party affiliation was very fluid.” READ MORE