Kamala Devi Harris is an American politician and attorney who is the 49th and current vice president of the United States under President Joe Biden. She is the first female vice president and the highest-ranking female official in U.S. history, as well as the first African-American and first Asian-American vice president. A member of the Democratic Party, she was previously attorney general of California from 2011 to 2017 and a U.S. senator from California from 2017 to 2021.
Official portrait, 2021
Harris's childhood home on Bancroft Way in Berkeley
Harris with California representative Nancy Pelosi in 2004
Harris's official Attorney General portrait
Vice President of the United States
The vice president of the United States (VPOTUS) is the second-highest officer in the executive branch of the U.S. federal government, after the president of the United States, and ranks first in the presidential line of succession. The vice president is also an officer in the legislative branch, as the president of the Senate. In this capacity, the vice president is empowered to preside over the United States Senate, but may not vote except to cast a tie-breaking vote. The vice president is indirectly elected together with the president to a four-year term of office by the people of the United States through the Electoral College. Since the passage of the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the US Constitution, the vice president may also be appointed by the president to fill a vacancy, via majority confirmation by both the Senate and the House.
Vice President of the United States
John Adams, the first vice president of the United States
Though prominent as a Missouri Senator, Harry Truman had been vice president only three months when he became president; he was never informed of Franklin Roosevelt's war or postwar policies while serving as vice president.
1888 illustration of John Tyler receiving the news of President William Henry Harrison's death from Chief Clerk of the State Department Fletcher Webster