How liberal is she? Watchdog groups rate the Senate record of Kamala Harris

Sen. Kamala Harris’ voting record has one of the Senate’s most liberal throughout her three years in Congress, according to congressional watchdog groups.

Americans for Democratic Action, a liberal advocacy group that compiles ratings based on major votes, gave her perfect scores in 2017 and 2018.

Fourteen senators, all Democrats, had perfect scores in 2017 and 10 had 100s in 2018. The Democratic Senate average was 88.8 in 2017 and 88.6 in 2018.

Harris voted the group’s way last year on key votes every time she was present. The California Democrat missed four of the votes as she waged her presidential campaign, which ended in December.

A separate analysis by GovTrack, a nonpartisan organization that compiles data on congressional legislation, found that the presumptive Democratic vice presidential nominee was the “most liberal senator” last year based on its look at legislation she co-sponsored and its co-sponsors.

Harris’ record is likely to become a major battleground. The Trump campaign has been attacking the senator’s liberal background, releasing a video charging “Phony Kamala Harris isn’t just Joe Biden’s new far-left handler, she’s the most radical nominee for vice president in American history.”

Harris was not always known as a reliable liberal.

Officials of both groups note that Harris had a cool relationship with many liberals prior to entering the Senate in 2017. As San Francisco’s chief prosecutor and then California attorney general, she was often criticized by progressives for her “top cop” stands.

“Our analysis is at odds with her documented pre-Congress career of being pragmatic or moderate, and it remains to be seen which part of her career — her actions as a district attorney and Attorney General or her policy proposals in Congress — would be reflected greater in a Biden administration,” said Josh Tauberer, GovTrack founder.

“Her liberal profile is a split tale,” said ADA National Director Don Kusler. As an attorney general and city prosecutor, her record was one “that would have many liberals, particularly our California colleagues, angered or at least rolling their eyes.”

But he said that as a senator, “her record since is solidly liberal according to our scoring. Additionally, her passionate and precise prosecutorial skills, among other attributes, have framed her as a rising star for many liberals.”

President Donald Trump’s campaign is using Harris’ liberal voting record as a major point of attack against Harris.

Within hours of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s announcement of Harris as his running mate, the Trump campaign sent out a lengthy list of what it said was strong evidence of a liberal bent. It was titled: “Phony, Far-Left Kamala Harris – Radical and Wrong.”

GOP Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel Wednesday called the senator a “California progressive radical.” Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., told reporters on a call arranged by the campaign that the Democratic ticket was “radical and far left.”

The Harris record, and for that matter the image, could prove somewhat of a problem, analysts said.

Simply having ties to San Francisco, which many outside the city regard as a bastion of liberal thought, creates a certain image, said David Barker, director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University.

“If Kamala Harris could have been from Kansas that would have been better, but she’s not,” said Barker, former director of the Institute for Social Research at California State University, Sacramento.

Biden, who appeared for the first time Wednesday with Harris, said of Trump’s blasts at Harris, “We all knew it was coming. You could have set your watches to it.” At the Wilmington, Delaware event, Biden said Harris has a long record of inclusiveness, of caring for all people.

Harris said of her Senate service Thursday that “It’s the people who I have fought for as a U.S. senator, where I worked every day to hold Trump officials accountable to the American people.”

Her liberal rating from Americans for Democratic Action comes from the organization’s annual selection of 20 votes it considers very important. Harris has voted the ADA’s way on 56, missing four because of her campaign last year.

Several of her votes opposed conservative judges. Last year, for instance, she voted against the nominations of Kenneth Kiyul Lee and Lawrence Van Dyke to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, which includes California.

Lee drew fire because of comments when in college that gay men got AIDS at a greater rate than heterosexual men because gays are more promiscuous. He apologized during his Senate confirmation hearing for those comments.

Van Dyke raised concern among critics that he may not be fair to gays. He told the Senate Judiciary Committee that everyone should be treated with respect.

She voted against the nominations of William Barr as attorney general and Andrew Wheeler as Environmental Protection Agency administrator.

Other Harris votes last year were in support of paid family leave for federal employees and rejecting Trump’s repeal of the EPA’s Clean Power Plan emissions guidelines from existing generating units.

GovTrack, using a different analysis, found her to be the “least likely to cosponsor a bipartisan bill,” even though she cosponsored the eighth most bills of anyone in the Senate.

It noted Harris has supported expanding public access to government health care as well as debt-free college.

This year, Harris has won praise from fellow Democrats for championing police reform initiatives. She was a leader in the effort in the Senate, but progress there stalled as Republicans and Democrats could not agree.

Harris’ record is anathema to conservatives. The American Conservative Union gives her a 3.03 lifetime score out of 100. Some of the votes that counted against her, such as the confirmations of Barr and Wheeler, were the same ones lauded by liberals.

“Phony Kamala Harris is Joe Biden’s political living will. Her radical-left beliefs should cause every American to worry about her being just one heartbeat away from becoming president,” the Trump campaign says on its website.