An unusual scene occurred on the House floor this week as the chamber's vote tally came to a tie at 215 to 215 when three House Republicans joined Democrats to oppose an effort to impeach Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Although the impasse was quickly resolved, as a fourth House Republicans changed his vote to oppose the bill in a procedural move that allows leadership to bring the legislation up again at a later date, it brought forward an issue that could come up again with a razor-thin Republican majority in the lower chamber — what happens if there's a tie vote in the House?
According to House rules, in the case of a tie vote, a question before the chamber "shall be lost." In the lower chamber, where Republicans hold just a slim majority and often see a handful of defections among their conference, there's no tie-breaker. Unlike in the Senate, where a tie-breaking vote may be cast, no one is brought in to resolve the issue.
In the upper chamber, which sees tie votes with more regularity, the Vice President is called upon to cast tie-breaking votes. In recent years, with a narrow Democratic majority in the Senate, Vice President Kamala Harris has on more than 30 occasions cast a tie-breaking vote, breaking the record set almost 200 years ago.
Kaia Hubbard is a politics reporter for CBS News Digital based in Washington, D.C.
2024-12-25 00:281668 view
2024-12-25 00:122136 view
2024-12-24 23:051213 view
2024-12-24 22:59974 view
2024-12-24 22:572720 view
2024-12-24 22:321166 view
Mysterious drone sightings continue across New Jersey, with videos from local residents posted to so
Chicago — Kids usually can't wait to get a cast off their arm, but 5-year-old Beau Stadel wasn't so
Scarlett Johansson and Colin Jost brought a night of sparkling romance to the Cannes Film Festival.T