Kamala Harris: Most Liberal Senator; Backed Green New Deal, ‘Medicare for All’

The choice of Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) as former Vice President Joe Biden’s running mate on Tuesday marks Biden’s continued march to the left, as Harris is one of the most left-wing members of the U.S. Senate.

The non-partisan GovTrack.us website ranked Harris the 4th most liberal member of the Senate, based on an analysis of legislation that she sponsored or co-sponsored through 2018, the first two years she spent in Congress.

Update: In 2019, GovTrack rated Harris the most left-wing — further to the left than “democratic socialist” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).

In early 2019, Harris became one of the first Senator to support the Green New Deal, the radical proposal from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) to end all fossil fuel use in the United States by 2030.

Harris also signed onto the “Medicare for All” bill introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), which would outlaw private health insurance for almost all medical purposes.

That issue — the elimination of private health insurance — proved controversial in the primary, as labor unions that had bargained for generous private health insurance benefits rejected “Medicare for All.”

Harris attempted to flip-flop and to argue that she did not, after all, support ending private health insurance, but could never explain the discrepancy.

Biden ran against “Medicare for All,” offering Medicare as an opinion to all Americans instead — though he has moved toward Sanders’s position since the primary, agreeing to lower the eligibility age for Medicare to 60 from 65.

Harris — and Biden — also raised their hands on the second night of the first debate when the candidates were asked which of them would support providing free health care to illegal aliens.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His new book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.