section_path: Constitutional roles/President of the Senate
section_name: President of the Senate
paragraph_text: President of the Senate
  
  Article I, Section 3, Clause 4 confers upon the vice president the title "President of the Senate", authorizing the vice president to preside over Senate meetings. In this capacity, the vice president is responsible for maintaining order and decorum, recognizing members to speak, and interpreting the Senate's rules, practices, and precedent. With this position also comes the authority to cast a tie-breaking vote. In practice, the number of times vice presidents have exercised this right has varied greatly. Kamala Harris holds the record at 33 votes, followed by John C. Calhoun who had previously held the record at 31 votes; John Adams ranks third with 29. Twelve vice presidents did not cast any tie-breaking votes.
  
  As the framers of the Constitution anticipated that the vice president would not always be available to fulfill this responsibility, the Constitution provides that the Senate may elect a president pro tempore (or " president for a time ") in order to maintain the proper ordering of the legislative process. In practice, since the early 20th century, neither the president of the Senate nor the pro tempore regularly presides; instead, the president pro tempore usually delegates the task to other Senate members. Rule XIX, which governs debate, does not authorize the vice president to participate in debate, and grants only to members of the Senate (and, upon appropriate notice, former presidents of the United States) the privilege of addressing the Senate, without granting a similar privilege to the sitting vice president. Thus, Time magazine wrote in 1925, during the tenure of Charles G. Dawes, "once in four years the vice president can make a little speech, and then he is done. For four years he then has to sit in the seat of the silent, attending to speeches ponderous or otherwise, of deliberation or humor."