Vice President Kamala Harris is yoked to the Senate after a two-month hiatus as absences by Sens. John Fetterman (D-PA) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) have left Democrats without an outright majority and in need of her tiebreaking vote.
Harris has cast the decisive vote in the Senate three times this week, including for two of President Joe Biden’s judicial nominees, reprising a duty that kept the vice president tethered to Washington for two years before Democrats grew their majority in the 2022 midterm elections.
As president of the Senate, Harris was on call to break ties in the evenly split chamber more than two dozen times, a responsibility that limited her ability to travel.
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Aides hoped that after Democrats boosted their majority in November, Harris would be freed to meet voters and tout the administration’s accomplishments with fewer constraints.
For the first weeks of the year, a one-vote buffer afforded Democrats some breathing room. At the time, Historian Joel Goldstein described Harris as no longer “hostage to the Senate calendar.”
Supporters hoped that after well-documented struggles during Harris’s first two years in office, the run-up to the 2024 elections could help the vice president overcome skepticism over her readiness for a bigger role.
But that balance has shifted, with the party again holding the barest majority as two Senate Democrats undergo treatment for health matters. The Senate is divided 51-49 with a Democratic majority that includes two independents who caucus with the party.
Fetterman, who suffered a stroke last year, was admitted two weeks ago to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where he is undergoing treatment for clinical depression.
Feinstein, who is 89, was hospitalized in San Francisco this week and is receiving treatment for shingles.
In a statement shared with the Washington Examiner, Feinstein said she expects to recover fully and hopes to return to the Senate later this month.
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Other Senate Democrats have faced recent health concerns, including Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA), who returned to the Senate this week after undergoing surgery for prostate cancer.
The absences highlight the precarious nature of Democrats’ majority as other close votes are expected in the coming weeks, including on Biden’s embattled nominee for U.S. ambassador to India.