WASHINGTON — Kamala Harris, who made historical past as the primary lady or particular person of shade to function vice chairman, made historical past once more on Wednesday as she matched the file for many tiebreaking votes within the U.S. Senate.

The vote, her thirty first, superior the nomination of Kalpana Kotagal to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The solely different vice chairman to forged so many was John C. Calhoun, who served as vice chairman from 1825 to 1832.

But in contrast to Calhoun, who spent eight years accumulating his complete, Harris tied the file in two and a half years. It’s a mirrored image of her distinctive circumstances, with a narrowly divided Senate and a sharply partisan ambiance.

“It really says more about our time, and our political climate, than it does about anything else,” mentioned Joel Okay. Goldstein, a vice presidential historian. “Our politics is so polarized that, even on the sort of matters that in the past would have flown through, it takes the vice president to cast a tiebreaking vote.”

Under the Constitution, presiding over the Senate and breaking ties is without doubt one of the solely constitutional duties of the vice chairman.

Harris had anticipated to get a reprieve from that position after the midterm elections, when Democrats expanded their majority from 50 to 51 votes.

However, circumstances intervened. Sen. John Fetterman, newly elected Democrat from Pennsylvania, was hospitalized for scientific melancholy. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, contracted shingles and was hospitalized as nicely.

The absences revived Harris’ string of tiebreakers. Earlier this yr she helped affirm two federal judges, one in Massachusetts and the opposite in California.

Both Fetterman and Feinstein have returned to the Senate, however contested nominations can nonetheless require Harris’ presence, comparable to on Wednesday.

Harris didn't appear desperate to make historical past with tiebreaker votes when she turned vice chairman. Before taking workplace, she wrote within the San Francisco Chronicle that “it is my hope that rather than come to the point of a tie, the Senate will instead find common ground and do the work of the American people.”

But tiebreakers swiftly turned a core a part of her job. The activity might show irritating at occasions, limiting her journey and holding her tethered to unpredictable occasions on Capitol Hill.

However, it additionally meant that Harris forged deciding votes on points just like the American Rescue Plan, a $1.9-trillion pandemic aid measure, and the Inflation Reduction Act, which restricted the prices of pharmaceuticals and created monetary incentives or clear power.

“It’s a blessing,” Goldstein mentioned, “because it associates her with some important accomplishments of the Biden administration.”

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Associated Press writers Steven Groves and Seung Min Kim contributed to this report.

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