If Harris wins, he will lean heavily on these Democrats in Congress

WASHINGTON – If the Democratic nominee Kamala Harris is elected president, she would soon try to strike deals with her former colleagues on Capitol Hill.

Harris spent four years in the US Senate representing California, the most populous state in the country. Former Senate colleagues and new House supporters told USA TODAY at the time the time she served in Congress was brief, she has strong connections there that would be critical to pushing her legislative agenda in a political environment where she just defeated her. Donald Trump but they can still expect to face stiff Republican opposition.

Harris’ star stood up in the Senate as a lawmaker willing to show off her prosecutorial skills: She went viral in 2018 when she questioned now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings.

Then-President Trump said she was “extraordinarily ugly” at the time. And a soundbite of that exchange has become an oft-quoted campaign piece for abortion-rights Democrats this cycle: Harris asks Kavanaugh if he can name “any laws that give the government the power to make decisions about the male body.”

Harris returned to the Senate relatively frequently during the first two years of the Biden administration, when the chamber was evenly divided, expressing the tie-breaking vote more often than any other vice president in American history.

Since launching her presidential campaign this summer, she has recruited a legion of House members as surrogates, appealing to lawmakers who felt they were held at arm’s length by the Biden campaign and who had not found Harris just as easy to reach when he was a senator.

Harris has years of experience working with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and also a longstanding relationship with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, first formed through the Congressional Black Caucus. Jeffries, also a New Yorker, is well positioned to become House speaker if Democrats take control of the chamber next year and remain minority leader if the GOP emerges victorious.

Even if Democrats win both chambers, Harris would still have some obstacles to accomplishing big things. The legislation would have to clear the 60-vote threshold imposed by opponents who are threatening to use the Senate filibuster — though Harris also said on the campaign trail that he would support a historical change of procedure which allow exceptions for key issues such as abortion rights. If Republicans win either chamber, as they are expected to do in the Senate, she will have to negotiate deals to get substantial legislation passed and would likely face aggressive scrutiny from conservative lawmakers — as well as obstacles to getting the confirmation of her appointees for the positions in the Cabinet. and to fill judicial vacancies.

Harris’s current boss, President Joe Biden, can be described as a creature of the Senate — and he certainly is. capitalized on his decades-long career in the upper room while living in the White House. Harris’ allies say she would bring fresh perspectives and a fresh approach to dealing with Congress.

Allies in the Senate

Some of Harris’ most trusted Democratic partners joined the Senate in 2017, the same year he did: Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, Tammy Duckworth of Illinois and Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire.

Cortez Masto and Harris had an old friendship dating back to when they were both attorneys general. pair sued the big banks following the 2008 financial crisis and won a $20 billion settlement.

“Then we just got to know each other, trust each other, like each other,” said Cortez Masto, who was a regular surrogate for Harris on the campaign trail and helped vet potential vice presidential candidates. .

Sen. Cory Booker, DN.J., with whom Harris served on the Judiciary Committee, is often cited as one of his closest allies on the Hill, as is Senate President Pro Tempore and Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray, Hon. . Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, and Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn.

Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla, who was California secretary of state while Harris was in the Senate and who replaced her when she became vice president, remains a good friend, as does Sen. Laphonza Butler, who served as a political adviser to the campaign to Harris in 2019. but who will leave the chamber in November after declining to run for a full Senate term.

And if she wins her closely contested Senate race to represent Maryland against former Gov. Larry Hogan, Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks would bring a friendship with Harris to the chamber that started 14 years ago when Harris was the district attorney of San Francisco. Harris called Alsobrooks to congratulate her on winning her state’s attorney race in Prince George’s County, Maryland.

Harris remains on good terms with Schumer, who made an exception to help her win a seat on a select committee, Judiciary, despite another California senator, the late Dianne Feinstein, also serving on the panel . It allowed Harris to leverage his experience as a prosecutor during the battles for Trump’s eventual first-term Supreme Court nominees..

As vice chairman, Harris also kept in touch with Senator Mark Warner, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who was the top Democrat on the panel when Harris served on it.

“I think it’s going to come with the appreciation that you have to work with Congress,” the Virginia Democrat said. “He’ll come with relationships, but also with a willingness to roll up his sleeves.”

Warner said he has built positive relationships with Republicans on the committee, but said he didn’t want to “put them in a difficult position” by calling them: “They might have to say otherwise right now.”

Harris organized a group of GOP campaign surrogates and pledged to appoint a Republican to her cabinet. He may find Republican allies in the Senate among moderates who have not backed Trump: Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, with whom he served on the Intelligence Committee, as well as Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska; Todd Young, R-Ind. and Bill Cassidy, R-La.

Former Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., who now serves as the Biden-appointed U.S. ambassador to Turkey, recalled working with Harris on efforts to expand the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which temporarily protects young of deportation that were illegal. brought to US as a child.

Congress has yet to come up with a solution to improve the country’s immigration system, but Flake said of Harris, “He understands that this can only happen in a bipartisan way.”

Allies of the house

Harris’ list of congressional friends favors the Senate, but he still has close relationships he could lean on in the lower chamber.

She has longtime ties to Jeffries as a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, and if Democrats take the House and the White House, they would make a historic pairing as the first Black House Speaker and the first female president. Harris also kept in touch with several members of the group, including current representative chairman Steven Horsford, DN.V.

Harris also built a good relationship with the co-chair of the House Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Rep. Nanette Barragán, D-Calif., and was a leader of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus during his time in Congress. She invited Horsford, Barragan and Rep. Judy Chu, Democrat of California and caucus chair, to stay in her box during her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention.

Rising Democratic stars Reps. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, Nikema Williams, D-Ga., all count Harris as a mentor.

Crockett said during a speech at the Democratic National Convention that she wasn’t sure she made the right choice to run for the House when she arrived in Washington in January 2023. The first time she met Harris as vice president, she said, “she saw right through me. She saw the suffering. I immediately started crying. And the strongest woman in the world wiped my tears and listened.”

Harris was also a longtime mentor organizer Lateefah Simon, who is all but guaranteed to win the Bay Area congressional race and go to the House next year.

And she picked staff with deep House ties: Her director of legislative affairs as vice president is Andy Flick, who was executive director of the centrist New Democrat Coalition, a crucial bloc of the Democratic caucus.