What do we know about the potential picks for the Democratic Vice President?
At the beginning of the 2020 Democratic race we took a look at the candidates who had been in Congress. Now that Vice President Joe Biden has clinched the nomination, we’re taking another look at his potential VP picks that have been in Congress.
As a relatively conservative democrat, Biden has the option to choose a left leaning VP to appeal to progressives who voted for Sanders, or to choose someone more like-minded to himself to continue a strategy of securing moderate voters. He has also promised to select a female candidate. We’ve selected some of the potential candidates Biden is rumored to be considering, and have roughly ordered them by their proximity to Biden’s own policies.
Senator Amy Klobuchar
Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar was one of the many primary candidates who dropped out to endorse Biden before the Super Tuesday elections. We wrote about her role in Congress in two previous articles covering the Democratic candidates, one this year and another last year.
Klobuchar has written more bipartisan legislation and has a higher GovTrack leadership score than anyone else on this list. Like Biden, she ran on an appeal to the moderate voting base, as opposed to the more progressive candidates on hot topic issues. Her climate solutions plan included $1 trillion in green infrastructure investment, a figure actually lower than Biden’s own $1.7 trillion. She was against banning the practice of fracking, and in favor of a public option strategy for healthcare rather than Medicare for All.
Despite all this Klobuchar may have drifted left while campaigning. During 2019 only 23% of the bills she signed onto were written by Republicans, a drop from 39% in 2018. In 2019 she joined several of her progressive opponents in cosponsoring the Green New Deal. Interestingly, the only people in this list who cosponsored the Green New Deal are the ex-presidential candidates.
Klobuchar also cosponsored a letter on April 6 this year requesting private student debt collectors to offer some relief to students impacted by COVID-19. Among the other signatories were progressive ex-candidates Elizabeth Warren, who wrote the letter, Kamala Harris, and Bernie Sanders. This shift falls in line with Biden’s student debt relief plan released just three days later, which would cancel a minimum of $10,000 of debt per person and would end interest and monthly payments for those making less than $25,000 annually. She also cosponsored Warren’s Bank on Students Emergency Loan Refinancing Act, which would allow low-income students to refinance high interest loans to a 3.76% interest rate
Senator Tammy Duckworth
Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth is also similarly positioned in GovTrack’s ideology scores as Biden during his later years in the Senate. She agrees with Biden on a public option strategy for healthcare, which she indicated by signing on to a bill to allow anyone living in the United States to buy health insurance through Medicare, the Choose Medicare Act, and on Biden’s moderate student debt relief proposal, which she indicated by signing on to Sen. Warren’s letter to Senate leaders requesting student debt relief. She also cosponsored Warren’s bill to allow for refinancing of high interest student loans.
Just about every Democrat agrees that there is a human-made climate crisis requiring national attention, but not about what the solution should be. Sen. Duckworth was not a cosponsor of the Green New Deal but did cosponsor the Clean Economy Act, which included the same goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Biden’s plan targets net-zero emissions by 2050 as well.
Aside from her alignment with Biden on many of the major issues, Duckworth brings with her a focus on the military and veteran’s affairs. She also has a relatively strong record of leadership for her limited time in Congress, having introduced the most bills, gotten the most bills out of committee, and gotten the most influential cosponsors of any of her fellow Senate Sophomores. She was also the first Senator to bring her baby onto the floor, having worked with Senator Klobuchar to change Senate rules to allow it.
Representative Val Demings
Florida Representative Val Demings is the one current member of the House of Representatives on this list. Although she has only served since 2017 and has a relatively sparse legislative record, her role as a manager in the impeachment of President Trump has brought her into the limelight.
Before her time in Congress Demings was the first female police chief in Orlando, FL, which may be why she has most frequently sponsored bills on crime and law enforcement. Even on her most frequent topic of legislation, however, Demings has only introduced five bills. In 2019 she was one of the least prolific legislators in the House, generally opting to cosponsor other Democrats’ bills rather than introduce her own.
Because of this it is easiest to determine her policies based on what she did and didn’t cosponsor, and on her membership with the New Democrat Coalition, a group of centrist Democrats with a focus on economic growth. Demings did not cosponsor Medicare for All or opt-in alternatives, nor did she cosponsor the House versions of bills to allow students to refinance high-interest debt or to set a goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. In short, Demings may be the only person on this list who appears to be further to the right than Biden.
Senator Catherine Cortez Masto
Nevada Senator Catherine Cortez Masto’s GovTrack ideology score is also about the same as Biden’s during his last years in the Senate. Like Biden, she has said she prefers opt-in and public option systems for public health insurance. She cosponsored the Medicare-X Choice Act back in 2017, which would have established a $1 billion public health plan. She did not sign on to either of Sen. Warren’s letters requesting student debt relief, but did cosponsor Warren’s bill to allow students to refinance high interest loans.
Cortez Masto differs from Biden in one key respect regarding environmental issues. She most frequently sponsors legislation on issues of public lands and natural resources. Some of her bills have been to reduce or prohibit the practice of hydraulic fracking, a practice Biden has previously supported. Her End Speculative Oil and Gas Leasing Act would discourage the federal government from leasing lands for the development of oil and natural gas resources. She also sponsored several bills protecting specific public lands, such as the Ruby Mountains Protection Act, which would prohibit fracking or mining in the mountains in her home state. However, she did not cosponsor the bill to ban fracking entirely. She also cosponsored the Clean Economy Act, which would set goals for net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
Governor and Former Representative Michele Lujan Grisham
New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham has said that Medicare for All has ideas worth debating, but opted for state-offered Medicaid buy-in plans in her Healthcare Choice and Affordability Act when she was in the House. That puts her in a similar state of mind with Biden on healthcare.
On student debt, however, Lujan Grisham veers to Biden’s left. As Governor she has been working towards statewide tuition-free higher education at public universities. She supported New Mexico Opportunity Scholarships, which will supplement New Mexico’s current lottery scholarship program with more funds to provide tuition-free public university to as many as 55,000 students. The New Mexico State Senate approved $17 million in funding for opportunity scholarships on Feb 20 this year.
While she never had a similar proposal in the House, Lujan Grisham did sponsor a bill that would have expanded student loan eligibility for part-time students, and cosponsored bills that would have expanded debt forgiveness and Pell grants.
On climate action Lujan Grisham falls more in line with Biden. Although she signed an executive order last year requiring New Mexico to adhere to the terms of the Paris Climate Agreement, and a bill to require utilities go carbon neutral by 2050, funding for her scholarship program has come from New Mexico’s fracking industry.
Senator Tammy Baldwin
Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin has a key disagreement with Biden: she cosponsored Medicare for All. Baldwin is particularly concerned with healthcare, having sponsored more health-related legislation than any other subject. In this session of Congress she has introduced legislation such as the No Junk Plans Act, which would reverse a Trump administration decision that allowed healthcare plans to deny coverage because of pre-existing conditions, and the Ensuring Lasting Smiles Act, which would require all healthcare plans cover necessary surgeries for birth defects such as cleft palate.
On other issues Baldwin and Biden are in closer alignment. Baldwin was yet another signatory on Sen. Warren’s letter to Senate leadership requesting emergency student debt relief as a response to COVID-19. Biden’s student debt relief plan includes Warren’s proposal to immediately cancel at least $10,000 of student debt per person. Baldwin also cosponsored the Clean Economy Act, which includes the same long term goal as Biden has proposed of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
Baldwin also would bring with her a similar experience and leadership as Sens. Klobuchar and Warren. She is in her second term as a Senator, and served in the House before from 1999 until 2012, and has a strong record of obtaining influential cosponsors on her bills.
Senator Kamala Harris
California Senator Kamala Harris held the position of most liberal Senator in GovTrack’s 2019 report cards. She was the least likely to cosponsor a bipartisan bill despite cosponsoring the 8th most bills compared to the rest of the Senate, meaning she was highly likely to cosponsor bills by her fellow Democrats. She has voiced her support for Medicare for All, but also cosponsored opt-in legislation. She has called for debt-free college, along with cosponsoring Senator Warren’s bill to allow students to refinance their high-interest debt, and she cosponsored both the Green New Deal and the Clean Economy Act.
Harris’ own legislative efforts have included a focus on combating racism and racial inequality. Most recently she introduced a resolution condemning the anti-Asian racism that has become more prominent in the wake of COVID-19, and a bill that would establish a task force to combat racial and ethnic disparities in COVID-19 response. Both bills were cosponsored by Sens. Klobuchar and Warren, as well as several other ex-presidential candidates.
Senator Elizabeth Warren
Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren ran her 2020 presidential campaign with positions from the left whereas Biden’s were more centrist. Warren argued for progressive stances like transitioning to Medicare for All and the elimination of private health insurance, student debt forgiveness and free public higher education, and an over $10 trillion response to the global climate crises (about $8.3 trillion more than Biden’s).
Beyond these issues, Warren has long had an interest in finance and the financial sector. Much of her campaigning and her legislative history has focused on raising taxes on large corporations and America’s wealthiest and preventing white collar crime. Her Stop Wall Street Looting Act would require Wall Street to make certain information about private funds public, and her Ending Too Big to Jail Act would crack down on financial institution crime.
Warren and Biden have had significant disagreements for most of the 2020 primaries, but following his victory Biden seems to have shifted slightly in Warren’s direction. He borrowed from her plans for his proposed response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including $10,000 of student debt relief per person, which Warren requested in her letters to the Senate and private debt collectors. The two also recently wrote a joint op-ed criticizing President Trump’s response to COVID-19.
These are just the potential candidates that have been in Congress. Biden is also rumored to be considering picks like Georgia ex-gubernatorial candidate Stacy Abrams and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.
This article was written by GovTrack staff Benjamin Hammer.
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