When he won the vice presidency, he made arrangements to resign from the Senate, as he was required to do under federal law, as soon as it convened on January 3, 1961."[83] In 1988, Lloyd Bentsen, the vice presidential running mate of Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, and a senator from Texas, took advantage of "Lyndon's law", and was able to retain his seat in the Senate despite Dukakis's loss to George H. W. Bush.
Johnson was re-elected senator with 1,306,605 votes (58 percent) to Republican John Tower's 927,653 (41.1 percent). Fellow Democrat William A. Blakley was appointed to replace Johnson as senator, but Blakley lost a special election in May 1961 to Tower.

Vice presidency (1961–1963)
See also: Presidency of John F. Kennedy
After the election, Johnson was quite concerned about the traditionally ineffective nature of his new office and set about to assume authority not allotted to the position. He initially sought a transfer of the authority of Senate majority leader to the vice presidency, since that office made him president of the Senate, but faced vehement opposition from the Democratic Caucus, including members whom he had counted as his supporters.