• Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    What actions would you have a vice president take? What exactly do you think she has the power to do right now?

    • Saleh@feddit.org
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      2 months ago
      • She could have publicly renounced the Israeli government instead of defending it.
      • She could have voted against and started voting initiatives to stop weapon sales and military aid.
      • She could have went to court to sue the government if Biden was reluctant. The arms sales are illegal by US law, as Israel is known to attack US and international humanotaroan aid
      • She could have made a point of opposing Netanyahu when he was in congress instead of just not being there.
      • She could have threatened to step down as VP and followed through with it, once she became candidate.
      • She could have let Palestinian Americans speak at the DNC convention instead of silencing them, while giving Families of Israeli hostages a place to speak. This was the bare minimum to do, unless clearly picking the side of Zionism.

      Then the party establishment had two options:

      • Either they would have fallen in line, winning the election and accepting that genocide is a no go for Harris.
      • Or they could have tried to oust her, knowing that it would cost them the election, or create so much push back that she remains as candidate and gets to toss them out.
      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        From just your second line I can see that you have no idea what powers the vice president has.

        Where and when was she supposed to vote against or for those things?

        • Saleh@feddit.org
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          2 months ago

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamala_Harris

          Senate presidency

          When Harris took office the 117th Congress’s Senate was divided 50–50 between Republicans and Democrats;[193] this meant that she was often called upon to exercise her power to cast tie-breaking votes as president of the Senate. Harris cast her first two tie-breaking votes on February 5. In February and March, Harris’s tie-breaking votes were required to pass the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 stimulus package Biden proposed, since no Senate Republicans voted for it.[194][195] On July 20, Harris broke Mike Pence’s record for tie-breaking votes in the first year of a vice presidency[196] when she cast the seventh tie-breaking vote in her first six months.[197] She cast 13 tie-breaking votes during her first year in office, the most tie-breaking votes in a single year in U.S. history, surpassing John Adams, who cast 12 in 1790.[197][198] On December 5, 2023, Harris broke the record for the most tie-breaking votes cast by a vice president, casting her 32nd vote, exceeding John C. Calhoun, who cast 31 votes during his nearly eight years in office.[199][200] On November 19, 2021, Harris served as acting president from 10:10 to 11:35 am EST while Biden underwent a colonoscopy.[201] She was the first woman, and the third person overall, to assume the powers and duties of the presidency as acting president of the United States.[202][203][204]

          As early as December 2021, Harris was identified as playing a pivotal role in the Biden administration owing to her tie-breaking vote in the evenly divided Senate as well as her being the presumed front-runner in 2024 if Biden did not seek reelection.[205]

          So from my understanding she gets the final vote on split issues. She could have leveraged her political power to push these issues to get to vote.

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            And which tied votes in specific should she have voted a different way on? Please name them.

            Because I can’t think of a single tied vote regarding Israel.