Earlier this month to little fanfare, Kamala Harris broke a 191-year-old record set by John C. Calhoun for the most tiebreaking votes ever cast by a vice president.
Harris’s 32 tiebreakers included passage of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan that provided pandemic relief for businesses and individuals, support for vaccines and testing, $1,400 checks to individual taxpayers, help with healthcare coverage and extended unemployment insurance.
Another key tiebreaker was Harris’s vote guaranteeing the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act. That groundbreaking law made the single largest federal investment in alleviating climate change, cut insulin costs to $35 a month for seniors, allowed the federal government to negotiate their prescription drug costs and capped those costs at $2,000 per year.
Five of Harris’s votes advanced judicial nominations that have given a record number of women and people of color a voice in meting out justice, including the record-setting tiebreaker that confirmed the 161st Biden judge.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-Calif.) praised Harris’s achievements as a “record-breaking milestone,” and presented her with a ceremonial golden gavel.
The previous record-holder, John C. Calhoun, who served as vice president from 1825 to 1832, was a staunch segregationist who argued that slavery was good for Black people. Calhoun became the most prominent spokesperson for the........