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This week's question was, Which vice president is tied with Kamala Harris in having issued 31 tie-breaking votes?
You answered: John C. Calhoun.
That's correct!
Vice President Kamala Harris (D) cast her 31st tie-breaking vote on July 12 in order to invoke cloture on the nomination of Kalpana Kotagal to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. In doing so, Harris tied with John C. Calhoun for the most vice presidential tie-breaking votes in U.S. history.
Calhoun served as vice president between March 4, 1825 and December 28, 1832 under Presidents John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson.
The table below lists the number of tie-breaking votes cast by every vice president.[1][2][3]
| Historical tie-breaking votes by vice presidents | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vice president | Tie-breaking votes | Years served | Days in office | Administration(s) | |||
| John Adams | 29 | 1789 - 1797 | 2,874 | George Washington | |||
| Thomas Jefferson | 3 | 1797 - 1801 | 1,460 | John Adams | |||
| Aaron Burr | 3 | 1801 - 1805 | 1,461 | Thomas Jefferson | |||
| George Clinton | 14 | 1805 - 1812 | 2,604 | Thomas Jefferson, James Madison | |||
| Elbridge Gerry | 9 | 1813 - 1814 | 629 | James Madison | |||
| Daniel D. Tompkins | 6 | 1817 - 1825 | 2,922 | James Monroe | |||
| John C. Calhoun | 31 | 1825 - 1832 | 2,856 | John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson | |||
| Martin Van Buren | 4 | 1833 - 1837 | 1,461 | Andrew Jackson | |||
| Richard M. Johnson | 14 | 1837 - 1841 | 1,461 | Martin Van Buren | |||
| John Tyler | 0 | 1841 | 31 | William H. Harrison | |||
| George M. Dallas | 19 | 1845 - 1849 | 1,461 | James K. Polk | |||
| Millard Fillmore | 3 | 1849 - 1850 | 492 | Zachary Taylor | |||
| William R. King | 0 | 1853 | 45 | Franklin Pierce | |||
| John C. Breckinridge | 10 | 1957 - 1861 | 1,461 | James Buchanan | |||
| Hannibal Hamlin | 7 | 1861 - 1865 | 1,461 | Abraham Lincoln | |||
| Andrew Johnson | 0 | 1865 | 42 | Abraham Lincoln | |||
| Schuyler Colfax | 18 | 1869 - 1873 | 1,461 | Ulysses S. Grant | |||
| Henry Wilson | 1 | 1873 - 1875 | 993 | Ulysses S. Grant | |||
| William A. Wheeler | 6 | 1877 - 1881 | 1,461 | Rutherford B. Hayes | |||
| Chester A. Arthur | 3 | 1881 | 199 | James A. Garfield | |||
| Thomas A. Hendricks | 0 | 1885 | 266 | Grover Cleveland | |||
| Levi P. Morton | 4 | 1889 - 1893 | 1,461 | Benjamin Harrison | |||
| Adlai E. Stevenson | 2 | 1893 - 1897 | 1,461 | Grover Cleveland | |||
| Garret A. Hobart | 1 | 1897 - 1899 | 992 | William McKinley | |||
| Theodore Roosevelt | 0 | 1901 | 194 | William McKinley | |||
| Charles W. Fairbanks | 0 | 1905 - 1909 | 1,461 | Theodore Roosevelt | |||
| James S. Sherman | 4 | 1909 - 1912 | 1,336 | William H. Taft | |||
| Thomas R. Marshall | 9 | 1913 - 1921 | 2,922 | Woodrow Wilson | |||
| Calvin Coolidge | 0 | 1921 - 1923 | 881 | Warren G. Harding | |||
| Charles G. Dawes | 2 | 1925 - 1929 | 1,461 | Calvin Coolidge | |||
| Charles Curtis | 3 | 1929 - 1933 | 1,461 | Herbert C. Hoover | |||
| John N. Garner | 3 | 1933 - 1941 | 2,879 | Franklin Roosevelt | |||
| Henry A. Wallace | 4 | 1941 - 1945 | 1,461 | Franklin Roosevelt | |||
| Harry S. Truman | 1 | 1945 | 82 | Franklin Roosevelt | |||
| Alben W. Barkley | 8 | 1949 - 1953 | 1,461 | Harry S. Truman | |||
| Richard M. Nixon | 8 | 1953 - 1961 | 2,922 | Dwight Eisenhower | |||
| Lyndon B. Johnson | 0 | 1961 - 1963 | 1,036 | John Kennedy | |||
| Hubert H. Humphrey | 4 | 1965 - 1969 | 1,461 | Lyndon B. Johnson | |||
| Spiro T. Agnew | 2 | 1969 - 1973 | 1,724 | Richard Nixon | |||
| Gerald R. Ford | 0 | 1973 - 1974 | 246 | Richard Nixon | |||
| Nelson A. Rockefeller | 0 | 1974 - 1977 | 763 | Gerald R. Ford | |||
| Walter Mondale | 1 | 1977 - 1981 | 1,461 | Jimmy Carter | |||
| George H.W. Bush | 7 | 1981 - 1989 | 2,922 | Ronald Reagan | |||
| Dan Quayle | 0 | 1989 - 1993 | 1,461 | George H.W. Bush | |||
| Albert Gore | 4 | 1993 - 2001 | 2,922 | Bill Clinton | |||
| Richard B. Cheney | 8 | 2001 - 2009 | 2,922 | George W. Bush | |||
| Joe Biden | 0 | 2009 - 2017 | 2,922 | Barack Obama | |||
| Mike Pence | 13 | 2017 - 2021 | 1,461 | Donald Trump | |||
| Kamala Harris | 31 | 2021 - Present | Joe Biden | ||||
Twelve vice presidents, including Joe Biden and Dan Quayle, never cast a tie-breaking vote during their time in office.
Click here to learn more about tie-breaking votes cast by vice presidents in the Senate.
Thanks for your response!
Footnotes
- ↑ Senate.gov, "Occasions When Vice Presidents Have Voted to Break Tie Votes in the Senate," accessed March 30, 2017
- ↑ House.gov, "Presidents, Vice Presidents, & Coinciding Sessions of Congress," accessed March 30, 2017
- ↑ FiveThirtyEight, "Joe Biden Has 10 Days Left To Cast His First Tie-Breaking Vote," January 10, 2017
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