Washington Examiner
Questions about Vice President Kamala Harris’s political future reached a boiling point this week, sparking discussion of the most extreme and least likely method of dislodging her from President Joe Biden’s orbit.
Fox News‘s Chad Pergram reported receiving a tip that he should “start to familiarize” himself “with the confirmation process not just in the Senate, but in the House, for a vice president.”
Such a process exists, but there are huge logistical hurdles to overcome in executing it under the current political conditions. Biden cannot fire Harris, who is an elected constitutional officeholder in her own right rather than an appointee who serves at the pleasure of the president. She would have to resign and has little incentive to do so.
A vice presidential vacancy would immediately bump both House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the president pro tempore of the Senate, currently retiring Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, up in the line of presidential succession. Both officeholders, no matter which party controlled the Senate, would be older than Biden, the oldest person to be president.
The Senate is split 50-50. During any period where the office of vice president was vacant, the Democrats would be without Harris’s tiebreaking vote, which they are counting on to pass their sprawling spending bill next month and which is needed to even control the Senate.
Those same margins would become a problem in attempting to confirm Harris’s replacement if her resignation could somehow be secured. Democrats could not confirm a new vice president without Republican votes, much less those of centrist Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona within their own party. A bipartisan nominee could be necessary for Senate confirmation.
A bipartisan nominee would not be satisfactory to large factions of Democrats in the House, which also must vote to confirm a new vice president. Harris is the first woman and minority, being black and Asian American, to serve as vice president. Her ouster would not please the Congressional Black Caucus or the Congressional Asian and Pacific Islander Caucus, among other groups.
Civil rights groups have been sensitive to even the perception that Harris is being marginalized within the Biden administration, with the Rev. Al Sharpton saying last month that he wanted to discuss her role directly with the president.
It would be even more complicated than the delicate dance Democrats have been performing on their social welfare spending bill and infrastructure. Absent Republican defections, a vice presidential nominee would have to be ideologically satisfactory to both Manchin and the left-wing Squad. There would also be an expectation that the nominee represent the diversity that contributed to Harris’s selection in the first place. There is no unifying choice, such as the late former Secretary of State Colin Powell, waiting in the wings…
