By Peter Cordi
Either Vice President Kamala Harris or Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) will be elevated to the highest-held position of their careers at the conclusion of the 2024 election season. Their voting records in the Senate provide telling insights into their ideological leanings and agendas.
Harris, who represented California in the Senate from 2017 to 2021, has faced criticism from former President Donald Trump and others for being “the most liberal” member of the Senate. Vance, on the other hand, has only been on the job since 2023, but his limited record shows he has been more willing to vote across party lines than Harris was.
In 2019, nonpartisan congressional tracker YouGov rated Harris the most liberal senator. She was also the sixth-least likely senator to vote across party lines in 2019, according to The Lugar Center’s McCourt School Bipartisan Index, and the 11th-least likely in 2017. Vance, by comparison, was the 22nd-least likely in 2023.
On The Lugar Center’s index, a lower score indicates a lower willingness to vote across party lines. Harris scored -0.92670 in 2019 and -1.19719 in 2017. While Vance did not score high on the ranking, his -0.79354 score from 2023 indicates that he is more willing to cross party lines to pass legislation.
Is Vance as conservative as Harris is liberal?
Aside from YouGov’s now-deleted 2019 report card which rated Harris as the most liberal senator, the tracker graded her the second-most liberal senator on its 2020 report card and the fourth-most liberal on the 2018 edition. YouGov does not have data on Vance yet.
Voteview, based out of the University of California, Los Angeles, also grades senators based on how ideologically extreme they are. Harris was the second-most liberal senator behind Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) in Voteview’s ratings in both 2017 and 2019.
Vance was ranked the fifth-most conservative member in 2023, while Warren and Harris were ranked the most liberal by a notable margin in 2017 and 2019. Sens. Eric Schmitt (R-MO), Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), Rand Paul (R-KY), and Mike Lee (R-UT) all came in as more conservative than Vance.
Harris received critical ratings from conservative grading organizations based on her Senate voting record, including a 0% score from Campaign for Working Families, another 0% from Heritage Action for America, a 9% from American Conservative Union, 10% from Eagle Forum, and 20% from Conservative Review.
Left-leaning graders were far more favorable to Harris, including Americans for Democratic Action, which gave her a 90% rating, and Progressive Punch, which graded her at 86%.
Vance received a 6% score from liberal Progressive Punch but was graded at 93% by right-leaning Heritage Action for America and 100% by Eagle Forum.
Reaching across the aisle
Both Harris and Vance have voted alongside members of the opposite party to pass legislation, although their scores on The Lugar Center’s McCourt School Bipartisan Index suggest that Vance is more willing to reach across the aisle.
Vance, for example, worked with Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Bob Casey (D-PA), and John Fetterman (D-PA) to introduce the Railway Safety Act in 2023 after the East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment.
Harris voted in favor of the 2018 First Step Act introduced by former Republican Rep. Doug Collins and signed by Trump. No Democratic senators voted against the bill, however, 12 Republicans did.
There have also been numerous bills, motions, and nominations that passed with bipartisan support and little-to-no opposition that the pair voted with members of the opposite party to pass.
What can Harris and Vance do with elevated power?
Despite no longer serving as a senator, Harris has cast 33 votes in the Senate since becoming vice president, who casts the tiebreaking vote when there is gridlock in the upper chamber of Congress. That role will belong to Vance if Trump wins in November.
There is no guarantee Vance would even have to cast a single vote if elected, as 12 vice presidents, including President Joe Biden, did not get a chance to break a Senate tie. Harris’s 33 votes rank as the most of any vice president, and she has done so in far less time than any of her predecessors who have come close.
Democrats have a 51-49 Senate majority, so the only time Harris has to vote is when they cannot get a unanimous vote within the party. There are 33 seats up for election in 2024, 10 held by Republicans and 23 held by Democrats. If one party ends up with a multi-seat majority, the next vice president may not cast many votes.
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According to Cook Political Report, each GOP seat up for grabs is in a state that leans Republican. Four Democratic-held seats are rated as toss-ups and one is rated as being “Solid Republican.” The Hill’s 2024 election forecast gives the GOP a 78% chance to take control of the Senate, predicting a 51-47 majority with two independents caucusing with Democrats.
If Harris wins in November, she would have the power to sign or veto bills that make it through Congress. She would also be able to issue executive orders to execute certain policies without being voted on by Congress.