Vice President-elect Kamala Harris has formally tendered her resignation letter for her US Senate seat.
Harris submitted the letter to California Gov. Gavin Newsom, bringing an end to her four-year career in the chamber.
“And this is not goodbye. As I resign from the Senate, I am preparing to take an oath that would have me preside over it,” Harris wrote. “As senator-turned-Vice-President Walter Mondale once pointed out, the vice presidency is the only office in our government that ‘belongs to both the executive branch and the legislative branch.’ A responsibility made greater with an equal number of Democrats and Republicans in the Senate.”
Harris continued: “Since our nation’s founding, only 268 tie-breaking votes have been cast by a Vice President. I intend to work tirelessly as your Vice President, including, if necessary, fulfilling this Constitutional duty,” she wrote. “At the same time, it is my hope that rather than come to the point of a tie, the Senate will instead find common ground and do the work of the American people.”
Harris made history when she became the first Black woman to serve as a senator of California in November 2016 after serving as California’s attorney general.
It was hoped by many that another Black woman would be tapped to fill her seat, but Alex Padilla, California’s secretary of state, was instead chosen by Newsom to fill Harris’ seat.
As Harris steps down, there are now no Black women senators.
“As we all know, she is now only the second black woman to serve in the United States Senate, and with her departure there will be no Black women serving in one of the great the greatest deliberative body in the world and so it is it is something she recognizes she believes that the representation of Black women and their voices are important. And that she hopes to see. And yet more black women, more women of color, serving in that body,” a Harris aide told ABC News.
Harris will become the first African-American Asian Vice President in history.
