WASHINGTON — When Kamala Harris is sworn in as vice president Wednesday, she will step into a role so often relegated to the background that John Nance Garner, Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s number two, once described it as “not worth a bucket of warm spit.”
But beyond shattering glass ceilings, Harris, 56, will assume outsized responsibilities unlike any of her predecessors, as she helps lead a nation battling multiple crises.
She is likely to be frequently called to cast the tiebreaking vote in a 50-50 Senate. She could end up presiding over President Trump’s second impeachment trial for inciting the mob attack on the US Capitol. And at the White House, President-elect Joe Biden has said he wants her to be “the last voice in the room” on every major decision that he makes.
“There is the version of the vice president that is sort of marginalized and not a key player — someone pulled out for funerals and state dinners,” said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. But she and other analysts do not expect the same for Harris given Biden’s experience when he was vice president during the Barack Obama administration.
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