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       Vice President Harris on Tuesday cast her 32nd tiebreaking vote to confirm Loren L. AliKhan to be a U.S. district judge for the District of Columbia — making history with the most deciding votes in the chamber by a vice president.

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       The 32 tiebreaking Senate votes that Harris has cast since assuming office in 2021 top a 191-year-old record by John C. Calhoun. As vice president to John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson, Calhoun had broken 31 Senate ties by the time he left office in 1832.

       Harris tied Calhoun’s record in July with a tiebreaking vote to add employment attorney Kalpana Kotagal to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

       Tuesday’s vote on AliKhan’s nomination stalled at 50-50, with Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) voting with Republicans. In the closely divided Senate — Democrats and the three independents who caucus with them hold 51 seats, while Republicans hold 49 — Harris has been called to the Capitol to break deadlocks on matters including key legislation, Biden nominations and routine procedural moves. Legislation that was advanced with the help of Harris’s tiebreaking vote has included the Inflation Reduction Act and the American Rescue Plan Act.

       Republicans train their fire on Vice President Harris

       To mark the record vote, Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) presented Harris with a golden gavel. Harris, who for four years served as a U.S. senator from California, arrived at the Capitol around 1 p.m. Eastern time to break the tie.

       Vice President Harris on Dec. 5 cast her 32nd tie-breaking vote to confirm Loren L. AliKhan to be a U.S. district judge for the District of Columbia. (Video: The Washington Post)

       “I join all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle thanking the vice president for her leadership and for making the work of the Senate possible,” Schumer said. “Without her tiebreaking votes, there’d be no American Rescue Plan, no Inflation Reduction Act, and we would not have confirmed any of the excellent federal judges now presiding on the bench.”

       Schumer thanked Harris for coming to the Capitol to break ties “while juggling the immense responsibilities of her office.”

       “So thank you, Vice President Harris,” he said. “This a great milestone, and yours is even a greater legacy.”

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