During her four years in the Senate, Kamala Harris was a reliable check on President Donald Trump and the chamber’s Republican majority.
She voted against the Trump tax cuts in 2017, but she supported major bipartisan bills, including the First Step Act, which aimed at lowering recidivism and instituting sentencing reform, and a bill focused on prevention, recovery and treatment for the opioid crisis.
Before coming to Capitol Hill in January 2017, Harris served as a prosecutor and attorney general in California. During her 2020 presidential campaign, Harris campaigned on raising teacher pay, getting dark money out of politics, taking action on gun violence and criminal justice reform.
She proposed “end-to-end criminal justice reform,” including updating sentencing laws, ending private prisons, and creating a national standard for law enforcement accountability.
RELATED STORY | Delegates already pledging support for Harris’ presidential campaign
In a roundtable conversation shared by her 2020 campaign, Harris said, “When there is that kind of accountability and consequence, I think we are going to see that there is a real deterrent then. A real deterrent around bad police behaviors, around bad law enforcement behaviors, that includes prosecutors by the way.”
Since her last presidential campaign, Harris has changed some of her previous stances. In the 2020 election cycle, she supported banning fracking and offshore drilling, and her campaign now says she no longer supports either of those bans.
A Harris campaign official told Scripps News she has also backed off her support of Medicare for all or single-payer health care, but Harris plans to continue efforts to reduce prescription drug costs and make health care more affordable.
RELATED STORY | Harris secures Democratic nomination for president with majority of delegates
On the issue of gun control, the vice president no longer supports a mandatory gun buyback program, but she still believes in universal background checks, red flag laws, and an assault weapons ban.
The Harris for President campaign has yet to roll out detailed policy proposals for what her administration would prioritize. The upcoming Democratic National Convention will be the first major opportunity for Harris to reintroduce herself to the voting public.
