Remember, her values have not changed.
Vice President Kamala Harris backed spending taxpayer dollars on gender reassignment surgeries for prison inmates, decriminalizing drugs and ending US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainers for illegal immigrants accused of crimes in response to a questionnaire from the left-wing American Civil Liberties Union during her ill-fated 2020 presidential campaign.
The survey was resurfaced by CNN just over 24 hours before Harris and former President Donald Trump square off in their only scheduled debate in Philadelphia.
“Kamala’s support for the decriminalization of all drugs will worsen the drug epidemic in this country leading to more overdoses, deaths, homelessness and heartbreak,” Trump 2024 press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.
“Kamala’s plan to fund sex change surgeries for illegal immigrants is absolutely insane and unfair to American taxpayers,” Leavitt added. “Kamala Harris is dangerously liberal.”
Since Harris became the Democratic standard-bearer following President Biden’s departure from the race July 21, her campaign has quietly issued statements walking back progressive policy positions including her opposition to fracking and support for electric vehicle mandates — without Harris herself going on the record to explain her reasoning.
The 59-year-old veep then muddied the waters in her lone major pre-debate TV interview Aug. 29, when she told CNN’s Dana Bash that “the most important and most significant aspect of my policy perspective and decisions is my values have not changed.”
Transgender surgeries for migrant inmates
The then-senator from California affirmed that she would use executive power as president to ensure transgender and non-binary individuals “including those in prison and immigration detention” get access to “all necessary surgical care.”
Harris noted that while the Golden State’s attorney general, she had pushed for the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to offer transgender surgeries to inmates.
“I support policies ensuring that federal prisoners and detainees are able to obtain medically necessary care for gender transition, including surgical care, while incarcerated or detained,” she wrote.
“Transition treatment is a medical necessity, and I will direct all federal agencies responsible for providing essential medical care to deliver transition treatment.”
Decriminalizing ‘all drugs’
Despite her track record of prosecuting marijuana cases, Harris declared that she would back decriminalization of “all drug possession for personal use” at the federal level.
“[I] believe it is long past time that we changed our outdated and discriminatory criminalization of marijuana,” Harris wrote during her earlier campaign. “Throughout my career I have supported treating drug addiction as a public health issue.”
On the 2024 Harris-Walz campaign’s newly created policy web page, her team touts her past history of prosecuting drug traffickers and cracking down on opioids, without mentioning her prior support for weed decriminalization.
“This past year, the number of overdose deaths in the United States declined for the first time in five years,” the page says. “As President, she will sign the bipartisan border bill that will fund detection technology to intercept even more illicit drugs and she’ll keep fighting to end the opioid epidemic.”
Scrapping ICE detainers
ICE utilizes detainers to request that state or local law enforcement hold someone in the US illegally and accused of a crime until they can be transferred to federal custody.
Harris backed ending the use of ICE detainers to the ACLU, arguing that law enforcement should “not act as federal immigration agents.”
“As president, I will focus enforcement on increasing public safety, not tearing apart immigrant families,” she wrote.
At the time, progressives were standing against former President Donald Trump’s hardline policies meant to rein in illegal immigration and tighten the US-Mexico border
After Biden took office, his administration saw the rate of ICE detainers plunge significantly as he drifted to the left on immigration policy.
On her 2024 campaign policy page, Harris reiterated her support for “an earned pathway to citizenship.”
Opposition to bills that restrict BDS movement
The Israel-Hamas war looms large in the 2024 cycle, but back in 2019, Harris conveyed opposition to legislation that “impedes or prohibits political boycotts, including with regard to BDS [Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions].”
The BDS movement calls for boycotting, divesting and backing sanctions against Israel due to its settlement policies. Scores of state and local GOP legislatures have passed bills targeting the BDS movement, which they describe as antisemitic.
“I absolutely believe that we must protect the right of individuals to engage in political expression as guaranteed under the First Amendment,” she wrote. “I oppose legislation that may be interpreted as infringing on or impeding constitutionally protected speech.”
“At the same time, I personally oppose the BDS movement because it questions the legitimacy of Israel, and strongly support Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.”
Federal funding for abortion
Harris also conveyed support for scrapping the Hyde Amendment, a 1970s era policy that prohibits the use of federal dollars for abortion.
Backers of the Hyde Amendment argue it ensures that taxpayers do not have to foot the bill for the controversial procedure that goes against certain people’s religion.
“Restricting the options that women have to obtain and pay for an abortion is effectively infringing on their reproductive rights. We need to eliminate the Hyde amendment and ensure that all insurers are required to provide full reproductive healthcare services,” Harris said.
Biden also reversed his position to oppose the Hyde Amendment back in 2019 amid pressure from his left flank.
Questions Harris skipped
The future vice president skipped a number of questions from the ACLU, including whether she would commit to “reducing incarceration by 50% in the federal prison system,” release 25,000 innamtes from federal prisons, issue federal guidance on “advising police to use deadly force” and reduce the “immigration detention system by at least 75%.”
