Tie-breaking votes cast by Mike Pence in the U.S. Senate
From Ballotpedia
Vice President Mike Pence (R) cast 13 tie-breaking votes in the U.S. Senate.
Under Article I, Section 3, Clause 4 of the U.S. Constitution, the vice president of the United States also serves as the president of the Senate. In this capacity, he or she may cast the deciding vote when there is a tie in the Senate.
John Adams cast the first tie-breaking vote on July 18, 1789. As of July 15, 2025, there were 308 tie-breaking votes from 38 vice presidents. Kamala Harris (D) (2021-2025) cast the most tie-breaking votes (33) during her tenure as vice president, John C. Calhoun (1825 - 1832) cast the second most (31), and Adams (1789 - 1797) cast the third most (29).
Twelve vice presidents, including Joe Biden and Dan Quayle, never cast a tie-breaking vote during their time in office.[1]
For an overview of tie-breaking votes cast by previous vice presidents, click here.
Pence's tie-breaking votes in the U.S. Senate
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Vice President Mike Pence (R) cast 13 tie-breaking votes in the Senate:
- December 21, 2018: The Senate voted 47-47 on whether to open discussion on the Child Protection Improvements Act of 2017. Pence broke the tie to open discussion on the act.[2]
- December 11, 2018: The Senate voted 50-50 on Jonathan Kobes' nomination to the United States Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit. Pence broke the tie to confirm Kobes.[3]
- November 29, 2018: The Senate voted 50-50 on a cloture motion on Jonathan Kobes' nomination to the United States Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit. Pence broke the tie to invoke cloture.[4]
- November 28, 2018: The Senate voted 50-50 on a cloture motion on Thomas Farr's nomination to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina. Pence broke the tie to invoke cloture.[5]
- February 28, 2018: The Senate voted 49-49 on Russell Vought's nomination to be the deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget. Pence broke the tie to confirm Vought.[6]
- January 24, 2018: The Senate voted 49-49 to confirm Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback's (R) nomination as ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom. Pence broke the tie to confirm the nomination.[7]
- January 24, 2018: Pence broke an initial 49-49 tie to end debate on Gov. Brownback's's (R) nomination.[8]
- December 2, 2017: The Senate voted 50-50 on an amendment to allow the use of 529 savings accounts to pay for elementary and secondary school costs, including private-school tuition. Pence broke the tie.[9]
- October 24, 2017: The Senate voted 50-50 on a joint resolution to nullify a rule submitted by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) regarding arbitration agreements. Pence broke the tie. The CFPB’s rule would have prevented companies from including arbitration clauses in customer contracts that block customers from filing class-action lawsuits in the case of a dispute. It was set to go into effect in 2018.[10]
- July 25, 2017: The Senate held a vote on a motion to proceed to the American Health Care Act of 2017 (AHCA), the House-passed repeal and replace bill. The motion was approved 51-50. Pence voted in favor of the bill to break the 50-50 tie.[11]
- March 30, 2017: The Senate voted to advance HJ Res 43—a measure allowing states to withhold federal funding for family planning from Planned Parenthood and other healthcare providers that perform abortions. Under an Obama-era regulation, states could not exclude a healthcare provider from receiving Title X funding for family planning and related services, like cervical cancer screenings, because it also provided abortion services. Pence cast the tie-breaking vote on the procedural motion to revoke the rule.[12]
- March 30, 2017: Pence then cast the tie-breaking vote on final vote to revoke the rule.[13]
- February 7, 2017: Betsy DeVos was confirmed by the Senate as secretary of education by a vote of 51-50. It was the first time in history a vice president had broken a tie in a Cabinet nomination vote.[14]
Historical tie-breaking votes
Overview
The table below lists the number of tie-breaking votes cast by every vice president.[1][15][16]
| 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 | 33 | 2021 - 2025 | 1,461 | Joe Biden | |||
| J.D. Vance | 7 | 2025-present | 332 | Donald Trump | |||
Comparison of tie-breaking votes cast by vice presidents, 1981-2025
The following chart compares the number of tie-breaking votes cast by each U.S. vice president after 1981.
See also
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Senate.gov, "Occasions When Vice Presidents Have Voted to Break Tie Votes in the Senate," accessed March 30, 2017
- ↑ Senate.gov, "On the Motion to Proceed (Motion to Proceed to the House Message to Accompany H.R. 695 )," December 21, 2018
- ↑ Senate.gov, "On the Nomination (Confirmation Jonathan A. Kobes, of South Dakota, to be U.S. Circuit Judge for the Eighth Circuit)," December 11, 2018
- ↑ Senate.gov, "On the Cloture Motion (Motion to Invoke Cloture: Jonathan A. Kobes to be U.S. Circuit Judge for the Eighth Circuit)," November 29, 2018
- ↑ Senate.gov, "On the Cloture Motion (Motion to Invoke Cloture on Thomas Alvin Farr, of North Carolina, to be U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of North Carolina)," accessed November 28, 2018
- ↑ Senate.gov, "On the Nomination (Confirmation: Russell Vought, of Virginia, to be Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget)," February 28, 2018
- ↑ The HIll, "Pence breaks tie to confirm Trump's pick for religious ambassador," January 24, 2018
- ↑ The HIll, "Pence breaks tie to confirm Trump's pick for religious ambassador," January 24, 2018
- ↑ Senate.gov, "On the Amendment (Cruz Amdt. No. 1852)," December 1, 2017
- ↑ Senate.gov, "On the Joint Resolution (H. J. Res. 111)," October 24, 2017
- ↑ Senate.gov, "On the Motion to Proceed (Motion to Proceed to H.R. 1628)," July 25, 2017
- ↑ The New York Times, "Senate Lets States Defund Clinics That Perform Abortions," March 30, 2016
- ↑ Senate.gov, "On the Joint Resolution (H.J. Res. 43)," March 30, 2017
- ↑ The New York Times, "Betsy DeVos Confirmed as Education Secretary; Pence Breaks Tie," February 7, 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
