Kamala Harris, whom Joe Biden on Tuesday named as his running mate, is the most liberal Democrat in the Senate, according to her congressional record.
Various analyses of the California Democrat’s first and only term in the U.S. Congress support the Trump campaign’s attacks on Harris as part of the “radical left.”
- They also bely much of the left-leaning media’s characterization of her a moderate and safe choice by Biden.
The data: GovTrack.us, a government watchdog website, gives Harris a perfect “ideology score” of 0.00 on a scale of 0-1, with 0 being the most liberal and 1 being the most conservative.
- Each lawmaker’s numerical rating is determined based on which legislation they have cosponsored in comparison to their colleagues.
- Harris has advanced bipartisan bills less often than any other Senate Democrat, the site says.
- Sen. Bernie — a Vermont Independent and self-described democratic socialist widely seen as the chamber’s most left-wing member — ranks behind Harris as the second most-liberal senator with a score of 0.02.
Analyses of Senate voting records also reveal Harris to be one of the chamber’s most liberal Democrats.
- Progressive Punch, a left-wing site that tracks congressional voting, says Harris has the fifth most-progressive lifetime voting record in the Senate, and she’s even more reliable on “crucial votes,” earning her an overall “A” grade.
- FiveThirtyEight, a leading source of political data analysis, finds Harris has the Senate’s seventh lowest “Trump score,” a measure of how often lawmakers vote with the president.
- Harris outperforms even the expectations of her heavily Democratic state, according to both rankings.
Among the bills Harris has pushed is Sanders’ 2017 Medicare for All Act, although she confusingly distanced herself from the single-payer healthcare plan during the 2020 Democratic presidential primary.
- Harris last July joined Sanders, a fellow failed 2020 candidate, in cosponsoring the Green New Deal, a sweeping plan to fight climate change and social injustice.
- In May, she teamed up with Sanders to propose legislation giving most Americans $2,000 a month during the coronavirus pandemic.
- Harris has also advocated using federal powers to protect access to abortion, close the “gender pay gap” and limit gun rights.
Sanders and other progressives have rallied around Harris since her appointment to the Democratic ticket.
- But some, including Sanders’ 2020 campaign press secretary, have opposed Harris’ rise, mostly because of her career as a sometimes-aggressive prosecutor in California.
- Reason’s Elizabeth Nolan Brown wrote in a deep-dive on Harris’ record last July that “she repeatedly fought for more aggressive prosecution not just of violent criminals but of people who committed misdemeanors and ‘quality of life’ crimes.”
In addition to branding Kamala as extreme, the Trump campaign has warned she’s a power-hungry “phony” who would end up running the White House if elected.
