In dispatching Vice President Kamala Harris via Zoom to two key states this week to sell President Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus package, the White House’s message was clear: We’re the government, and we need your help.
Harris’s media campaign in West Virginia and Arizona targets two states whose Democratic senators, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, have been reluctant to support the White House’s sprawling pandemic recovery package. Her outreach marked a soft shift from the quiet perch she has occupied by Biden’s side since taking office, signaling that the White House sees her as a persuasive force who can help keep congressional Democrats in line.
“The president and I feel very strongly that these are the moments, when we are facing a crisis of unbelievable proportion, that the American people deserve their leaders to step up and stand up for them,” Harris told WSAZ, a West Virginia television station.
“If we don’t pass this bill … we know more people are going to die in our country,” she told the Arizona Republic.
Harris’s blitz across the country comes as the White House faces significant obstacles to passing its “American Rescue Plan” with a 60-vote threshold in the Senate, meaning all 50 Democrats would need to sign on — as well as 10 Republicans. Even if that threshold is lowered, Biden and Harris still must keep their party together.
That’s because centrist lawmakers, including several Democrats, have balked at the total cost of the White House’s proposed package, complicating even the prospect of passing the bill via the “budget reconciliation” rule. Such a move would allow Democrats to shove the coronavirus package through in the upper chamber with a 51-vote majority that would include Harris’s tie-breaking vote.
Biden made clear on Friday he is willing to do just that, telling reporters during his first edition of the “Chopper Talk” made famous by former President Donald Trump: “I support passing COVID relief with support from Republicans if we can get it. But the COVID relief has to pass. No ifs, ands, or buts.” That means Manchin and Sinema must be persuaded (or pressured) into supporting the measure.
Enter the vice president.
While Biden said in December that he and Harris were “simpatico” in their approach to governing, describing their respective positions as “full partners,” the public saw scant evidence until recent days when the duo were side-by-side in the Oval Office being briefed by Cabinet officials and aides in intelligence threats and the economic situation.
Most days now begin with Biden and Harris in the Oval Office receiving the president’s daily intelligence briefing, a stone’s throw from Blair House, where Harris is living temporarily.
Harris has taken on some of her predecessors’ work, such as the ceremonial duties of swearing-in recently confirmed Cabinet appointments, something former Vice President Mike Pence was summoned to do often — sometimes with Trump standing nearby.
“Fresh face”
Historian Lindsay Chervinsky said she sees Harris playing a slightly different role than former vice presidents such as Pence, Biden himself, or Dick Cheney. Pence occupied a supporting position next to Trump, whereas both Biden and Cheney “played very substantive roles in terms of policy,” she said.
Harris’s participation in the Oval Office briefings could indicate a similar dynamic down the line.
“If they are regularly sharing and discussing intelligence, that reflects high-level conversations about security in a way that Biden often did with Obama,” Chervinsky noted.
As vice president, Biden’s biggest strength was his ties to Capitol Hill, where he spent the administration’s early days trying to shore up support for President Barack Obama’s economic recovery package. “Now, of course, Biden still has those connections, so he doesn’t need Harris to be spending as much time on that,” she said.
Harris’s outreach to West Virginia was not intended to influence Manchin, White House aides contended to the Charleston Gazette-Mail.
A quirk of the vice president’s role is that it does not come with a defined path, and Harris has yet to stake one out.
For his rescue package, Biden’s top legislative and economic aides are “quarterbacking.” And while Harris has been present when Biden this week issued dozens of executive actions, it’s him alone signing the blue-bound orders.
“Presidents get the most done in the first term of their first year, regardless of party,” said Mike Plante, a longtime Democratic operative in West Virginia. While Biden is better known inside the state, “having a fresh face is probably not a bad idea.”
Making clear the White House’s focus on states like West Virginia is smart politics, experts said.
“It has an impact for senators like Joe Manchin — that there’s a narrative back home that is focused on making sure that West Virginia doesn’t get left behind by the new administration,” Plante said, instead of leaving lawmakers “to carry the water.”
“Tough job”
To be sure, Harris’s work on the coronavirus package suggests Biden intends to do more than send her to funerals around the world.
“Vice president is a tough job,” said Marshall Auerback, who is a researcher at Bard College’s Levy Economics Institute and a fellow of Economists for Peace and Security. “I think it was Jack Nance Garner who once said that it ‘isn’t worth one bucket of spit.’”
Garner, Franklin Roosevelt’s vice president, drew power by acknowledging his office’s limitations and building close relationships with prominent allies — and later, enemies of the president.
Cheney was selected to provide “heft” to the ticket, which was unusual as vice presidents were historically chosen for their Electoral College advantages, Chervinsky said, adding that “Cheney was always the last one in the room when Bush was making a decision.”
Biden, joining Obama amid a roiling Great Recession, became the second most powerful vice president after Cheney.
“It certainly historically is not a role that has any defined constitutional rules, so it could be as big or as little as possible,” Auerback said.
Biden is credited with playing a major role in getting Obama’s 2009 recovery act through Congress. If Manchin and Sinema ultimately provide the votes needed to pass Biden’s coronavirus rescue plan, Harris could be poised to claim some credit.
Still, Auerback said he was struck during the campaign “at the comparatively minor role” that Harris played.
“The feeling was that, here’s Joe Biden. He’s a cipher. He’s a transitional figure. And he’s ultimately laying the groundwork for the next generation of leaders, Harris being one of the top ones,” he said. “The reality is, [Biden] hasn’t laid any kind of real foundation.”
“I can’t see one conspicuous policy initiative that we could identify with her,” Auerback said. “Certainly, there’s nothing to suggest that she’s going to be playing a powerful vice presidential role, as say even Biden did with Obama, or indeed Cheney did with Bush.”
