Vice President Kamala Harris has spent her career championing progressive legislation, from the Green New Deal to Medicare for all. Now, she’s backtracking on some of that support as she tries to rally voters behind her as the Democratic nominee since President Joe Biden dropped out last month.
Here are six policies she’s walked back support for.
Support for a mandatory buyback program
A campaign official told Fox News that Harris is no longer supporting a mandatory buy-back program for AR-15s and similar guns. While running for president in 2019, she said, “We have to have a buy-back program and I support a mandatory buy-back program,” at a forum in Las Vegas
Trump has already capitalized off her previous comments, telling supporters at a Georgia rally, “She supports mandatory gun confiscation … Would anybody mind if they came into your house and took away your gun? … She’s for taking away all of your guns.”
A ban on fracking
Despite saying during her previous presidential bid “There’s no question I’m in favor of banning fracking,” the vice president has now walked back on that position.
A campaign official told the Hill exclusively that Harris would not seek to ban fracking if elected in November. The official attempted to turn the flip-flop on Trump, focusing on his oil-friendly position.
“Trump’s false claims about fracking bans are an obvious attempt to distract from his own plans to enrich oil and gas executives at the expense of the middle class,” the spokesperson said in a statement to the outlet.
“The Biden-Harris Administration passed the largest ever climate change legislation and under their leadership, America now has the highest ever domestic energy production,” the spokesperson added.
Single-payer system
Harris campaign officials confirmed in July she has also changed her stance on her health care system policies. Previously, she supported a single-payer system — that is no longer the case.
Harris co-sponsored Medicare for All legislation with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) in 2017, which would essentially eliminate the private insurance market. During her previous presidential run, she reiterated her support for the government-run health insurance program, saying, “We need to have Medicare for all.”
Expanding the Supreme Court
In 2019, Harris was one of a handful of Democrats who said they wouldn’t “rule out” expanding the court, according to Politico. During Trump’s presidency, conservatives gained a large advantage in the court, causing concerns for liberal lawmakers.
She said then, “We are on the verge of a crisis of confidence in the Supreme Court. We have to take this challenge head-on, and everything is on the table to do that.”
Now, however, she has stated she is not in favor of expanding the Supreme Court, which currently has nine justices. Biden has proposed ethics reforms for the Supreme Court, which Harris has voiced support for, but neither of them are supportive of expansion, according to a spokesperson.
Federal jobs guarantee
Harris no longer supports a federal job guarantee, an idea championed by some on the Left and Green New Deal proponents that gained traction among Democrats during the 2020 election cycle. A spokesperson for Harris’s campaign confirmed the position change exclusively to the Washington Examiner.
A federal jobs guarantee would mean the federal government would provide a job to anyone who wants one, a massively costly proposal that harkens back to the New Deal policies of the 1930s.
The Harris spokesperson told the Washington Examiner in the context of the reversal that the campaign is trying to be forward-looking, rather than looking backward. The aide said Harris is very proud of the Biden administration’s climate record and is excited to build upon the progress of those changes.
Police funding and support
In the wake of George Floyd’s murder and the 2020 protests calling for defunding the police, Harris was supportive of redirecting funds.
“This whole movement is about rightly saying we need to take a look at these budgets and figure out whether it reflects the right priorities,” Harris said in a 2020 interview.
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However, that fall, former Harris press secretary Sabrina Singh said, “Joe Biden and Kamala Harris do not support defunding the police, and it is a lie to suggest otherwise. Throughout her career, Sen. Harris has supported increasing funding to police departments and boosting funding for community policing.”
Last month, Mitch Landrieu, national co-chair for the Biden-Harris campaign walked back her statements, saying, “Her position has always been that you can both be tough and smart on crime, and it requires funding police.”
