The Senate majority leader decides on what comes to the Senate floor to be voted on. Who decides if the Senate is 50/50?

Persephonee · 22-25, F Best Comment

The sitting VP would decide any question on which the whole Senate was tied in a full session.

There was a 50-50 split for a short while after the 2000 election (and then one Republican became a Democrat-leaning independent so the split ended).

In that situation, instead of the maj party having a maj of committee seats and a bigger budget for staff, the seats/budget was split evenly, and if a committee was split on a question it went to the full chamber (giving the VP the deciding vote). In conference committees (with members of both houses, to agree on common wording for bills etc), whoever has the majority in the House of Repesentatives has more seats in the conference committee by default.

When there was a possibility in 2016 of a 50-50 split, Mitch McConnell said they'd simply replicate what happened in 2000. I assume the same would be true now.