US Vice President Harris breaks record for tie-breaking Senate votes
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[December 06, 2023]
By Nate Raymond
(Reuters) - Kamala Harris on Tuesday set the record for breaking the
most ties in the Senate by a U.S. vice president as she cast a vote to
confirm President Joe Biden's nominee Loren AliKhan to become the first
South Asian woman judge on the federal district court in Washington.
The Senate, narrowly controlled by Biden's fellow Democrats, confirmed
the District of Columbia Court of Appeals judge to a seat on the federal
bench in the U.S. capital by a margin of 51-50 after Harris, a former
senator from California, cast the tie-breaking vote. As vice president,
Harris is also the Senate's president and breaks ties when they arise.
As they have with many Biden judicial nominees, Republicans opposed
AliKhan, citing stances she previously took as a District of Columbia
government official. Senator Joe Manchin, a moderate Democrat, voted
with the Republicans, necessitating the Harris tie-breaking vote.
The record Harris broke had stood for almost two centuries. Harris has
now cast 33 Senate tie-breaking votes, exceeding the 31 cast by John
Calhoun when he was vice president from 1825 to 1832. Calhoun is
remembered today as a staunch defender of slavery and an advocate of
states' rights.
Earlier in the day, Harris broke a tie on a procedural vote to allow
AliKhan's nomination to move to a final confirmation vote. With those
votes, Biden has now secured confirmation of 161 judicial nominees.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2023/Dec/06/images/ads/current/peasley_sda_HFH_2023.png)
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, hailed the role Harris
has played in securing passage of major legislation and confirmation of
judicial nominees, saying that "without her tie-breaking votes, there
would be no American Rescue Plan, no Inflation Reduction Act, and we
would not have confirmed many of the excellent judges now presiding on
the bench."
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![](../images/120623PIX/news_v15.jpg)
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris walks to cast a tie-breaking vote
in the senate at the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, U.S.,
December 5, 2023. REUTERS/Leah Millis
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2023/Dec/06/images/ads/current/debbiesfloral_lda_112023.png)
Democrats hold a slim 51-49 majority in a chamber riven with
partisan differences.
"The record Vice President Harris sets today is significant,"
Schumer said on the Senate floor. "Not just because of the number
but because of what she has made possible with tie-breaking votes."
AliKhan previously worked in the District of Columbia attorney
general's office and served as its solicitor general from 2018 to
2022. Among the cases she argued in that role was a lawsuit that
accused Republican former President Donald Trump of violating
anti-corruption provisions of the U.S. Constitution during his
ownership of a hotel in Washington while in office.
After Trump left office in 2021, the conservative-majority U.S.
Supreme Court threw out a lower court's ruling that had allowed the
lawsuit filed by the District of Columbia and the state of Maryland
to proceed.
AliKhan also unsuccessfully defended public health-related
restrictions that D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser issued at the onset of
the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 on religious gatherings of more than
100 people, indoors or outdoors, that were challenged by a local
church.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; additional reporting by
Richard Cowan in Washington; Editing by Will Dunham and Alexia
Garamfalvi)
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