Vice President Pence, in his first year, in the office, played the most active role as a Senate tie-breaking vote than any Vice President in the history of America.
Throughout 2017 Pence was called on an incredible and unprecedented 6 times to be a tie-breaking vote in the Senate – as Republicans worked to advance President Trump’s agenda.
“The vice president does a lot of things that are invisible,” said Joel Goldstein, who teaches law at the St. Louis University and is studying the vice presidency. “Breaking a tie vote is visible. It’s one of the most visible things the vice president does.”
In his most important and visible contributions, the vice president had a record-breaking year, as he went forth to be the tie breaker for a total of six times, which happens to be a record high for any vice president in their first year in the office.
Pence is also the first ever Vice-president to use the special tie breaker vote so that a nominee could be confirmed in the Cabinet.
The first tiebreaker vote for Pence came in the beginning of 2017, February, when he had spent just weeks in the office and had to vote to confirm the President’s nominee Betsy DeVos as the Educational Secretary.
He had used the tiebreaking power vested with him five more times ever since.
While the other vice presidents in the history had averaged to almost a tie breaking vote a year, Joe Biden – former Vice President never had to use the tie breaking vote in his eight years of being in the Office.
As per the Senate Historical Office, the vice president who used the tie breaking power the most – 31 times to be precise was John Calhoun, who was also the vice president to the President Andrew Jackson.
However Pence’s role is critical, and this fact is not considered to be true by many of his fellows.
“Just about anybody can cast a deciding vote, I think vice presidents are more significant than that,” said Ted Kaufman, a former senator and chief of staff to Biden.
In technical terms, Vice President is essentially the President for the Senate and is the most symbolic position in the case when a tie is faced. The President of the Senate is allowed the tie breaker vote, allowing him to break the ties in favor or against the resolution under voting procedures.
With Trump, and the Republican Congress aiming to bring on several of important legislation in the New Year the role of the Vice President is going to be more critical than ever.
