This article will be permanently flagged as inappropriate and made unaccessible to everyone. Are you certain this article is inappropriate? Excessive Violence Sexual Content Political / Social
Email Address:
Article Id: WHEBN0003493102 Reproduction Date:
The tie-breaking vote (or casting vote) has been made 244 times by 35 different Vice Presidents.[1]
The first President of the Senate, Washington 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.[2]
In 2001, during the 107th Congress, the Senate was divided 50–50 between Republicans and Democrats and thus Dick Cheney's tie-breaking vote gave the Republicans the Senate majority. Interestingly, however, because the 107th Congress was sworn in on January 3, while the president and vice president were not sworn in until the 20th, Democrats technically held a 51–50 majority in the Senate for the 17 days while Al Gore was still Vice President. However, no substantive legislative work was done in this time.
In recent years, with the rise in use of the filibuster in the United States Senate, the Vice President's tie-breaking vote has become less important, because close votes on important issues will, with few exceptions, almost certainly be filibustered, preventing a tied vote from taking place. Three fifths of the votes—far higher than the half from a tie—is needed to end a filibuster.
Mitt Romney, Barack Obama, Richard Nixon, Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan
Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lyndon B. Johnson, Politics
Democratic Party (United States), Republican Party (United States), United States, United States House of Representatives, United States Congress
John Adams, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, James Monroe, Virginia
Ronald Reagan, United States Senate, Gerald Ford, Dwight D. Eisenhower, United States presidential election, 1952
United States Senate, United States Senate elections, 2012, Seniority in the United States Senate, Standing Rules of the United States Senate, United States Capitol
Democratic Party (United States), United States Senate, Republican Party (United States), Rand Paul, New York
United States Senate, World War II, Standing Rules of the United States Senate, United States Capitol, Congressional office buildings
United States Senate, Richard Nixon, Oregon, Maine, Abraham Lincoln