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Article I, Section 3, Clause 4 of the United States Constitution provides that the vice president of the United States is the ''
ex officio An ''ex officio'' member is a member of a body (notably a board, committee, council) who is part of it by virtue of holding another office. The term '' ex officio'' is Latin, meaning literally 'from the office', and the sense intended is 'by right ...
''
president of the Senate President of the Senate is a title often given to the presiding officer of a senate. It corresponds to the speaker in some other assemblies. The senate president often ranks high in a jurisdiction's succession for its top executive office: for ...
, and that the vice president may cast a vote in the Senate only in order to break a tie. According to information provided by the Office of the Secretary of the Senate, as of August 7, 2022, the collective number of tie-breaking votes cast by vice presidents was 294.


Constitutional basis

Article I, Section 3, Clause 4 of the
Constitution of the United States The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, in 1789. Originally comprising seven articles, it delineates the nation ...
directly states:


History

The first vice president of the United States, John Adams, cast 29 tie-breaking votes. He cast his first tie-breaking vote on July 18, 1789. His votes protected the president's sole authority over the removal of appointees, influenced the location of the national capital, and prevented war with Great Britain. On at least one occasion he persuaded senators to vote against legislation that he opposed, and he frequently lectured the Senate on procedural and policy matters. Adams' political views and his active role in the Senate made him a natural target for critics of the
Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...
administration. Toward the end of his first term, as a result of a threatened resolution that would have silenced him except for procedural and policy matters, he began to exercise more restraint in the hope of realizing the goal shared by many of his successors: election in his own right as President of the United States. John C. Calhoun was the only vice president to ever cast tie-breaking votes against his own president,
Andrew Jackson Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767 – June 8, 1845) was an American lawyer, planter, general, and statesman who served as the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837. Before being elected to the presidency, he gained fame as ...
. President Jackson nominated Martin Van Buren as United States Minister to the United Kingdom, as Van Buren was acting minister on a recess appointment. Calhoun cast a tie-breaking vote to delay the nomination on January 13, 1832, and later cast a vote to defeat the nomination on January 25. Calhoun's supporters in the Senate provided him with the opportunity to spite Jackson, where just enough of Calhoun's faction abstained to create a tie that he was then able to break. In the early 21st century, the increased threat of a filibuster led to a rise in the use of
cloture Cloture (, also ), closure or, informally, a guillotine, is a motion (parliamentary procedure), motion or process in parliamentary procedure aimed at bringing debate to a quick end. The cloture procedure originated in the National Assembly (Fran ...
to end debate in the Senate, especially on high-profile issues where the Senate is sharply divided. The increased use of cloture made the vice president's tie-breaking vote less likely to be used, as the invocation of cloture requires a three-fifths majority (rather than a simple majority). However, in 2013, the cloture requirement was reduced to a simple majority for all executive and judicial nominations except Supreme Court nominations. In 2017, the cloture requirement was reduced to a simple majority for Supreme Court nominations. These rules changes led to the first ever use of a tie-breaking vote to confirm a Cabinet member when Mike Pence broke a tie to confirm
Betsy DeVos Elisabeth Dee DeVos ( ; ' Prince; born January 8, 1958) is an American politician, philanthropist, and former government official who served as the 11th United States secretary of education from 2017 to 2021. DeVos is known for her support for s ...
as Secretary of Education in 2017. In 2018, Pence broke a tie to confirm Jonathan A. Kobes to the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit; this was the first ever tie-breaking vote to confirm a judicial nominee in U.S. history. Since January 20, 2021, the current
117th Congress The 117th United States Congress is the current meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, composed of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It convened in Washington, D.C., on ...
's Senate has been divided 50–50 between Republicans and Democrats; therefore, Vice President Kamala Harris's tie-breaking vote gives the Democrats the Senate majority. On July 20, 2021, Harris broke Pence's record for tie-breaking votes in the first year of a vice presidency when she cast the seventh tie-breaking vote in her first six months. Harris cast 15 tie-breaking votes during her first year in office, the most tie-breaking votes in a single year in U.S. history, surpassing John Adams who cast 12 votes in 1790. On May 11, 2022, Harris cast four tie-breaking votes, setting the all-time record of tie-breaking votes in a single day.


List of vice presidents by number of tie-breaking votes

, there have been 294 tie-breaking votes cast by vice presidents.


List of tie-breaking votes since 1945


References


External links


U.S. Senate: Tie Votes (Secretary of the U.S. Senate)
{{DEFAULTSORT:List Of Tie-Breaking Votes Cast By Vice Presidents Of The United States tie-breaking votes cast τ Lists related to the United States Senate Articles containing video clips