More than a dozen briefs signed by Vice President Kamala Harris during her time as California Attorney General highlight her left-wing stances on several contentious legal issues of the past decade.
Harris filed briefs with the Supreme Court in favor of affirmative action, backing buffer zones that prevent pro-life counseling outside abortion clinics and opposing Arizona’s state immigration law, according to a list compiled by law professor Josh Blackman. Her positions on some of the biggest Supreme Court controversies during her time in office — and continuing into her time in the senate and as vice president — provide a long track record to consider how she would view constitutional issues as president.
Affirmative Action
Harris defended affirmative action in 2012 and 2015 amicus briefs in Fischer v. University of Texas at Austin, urging the Supreme Court to allow the university to consider race as a factor in admissions, even while acknowledging an amendment to the California constitution restricted race-conscious admissions. She also led a group of Democrat attorneys general in 2013 to oppose a Michigan ban on “sex-and race-based preferences” in education, arguing bans on affirmative action “violate the Equal Protection Clause.”
In 2023, the Supreme Court struck down the use of racial preferences in college admissions as a violation of the Equal Protection Clause. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote universities have wrongly concluded “that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned but the color of their skin.”
Today’s Supreme Court decision is a denial of opportunity.
It’s not about being colorblind. It’s about being blind to history, blind to empirical evidence about disparities, and blind to the strength that diversity brings to classrooms. pic.twitter.com/pB872AnPbO
— Vice President Kamala Harris (@VP) June 29, 2023
Harris called the Supreme Court’s ruling a “step backward for our nation.” The Biden-Harris administration released guidance following the decision that urged universities to continue weighing how a “student’s background, including experiences linked to their race, have shaped their lives and the unique contributions they can make to campus” to skirt the ruling.
Abortion
Harris joined a coalition of Democratic attorneys general in 2013 to defend buffer zones around abortion clinics in Massachusetts that prevented pro-life advocates from engaging in sidewalk counseling. (RELATED: Kamala Harris Presidency Could Be A Nightmare Scenario For Pro-Lifers, Conservatives Concerned About DOJ Weaponization)
In 2016, Harris joined a coalition of Democratic attorneys general in opposing a Texas law that required doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges with a nearby hospital and abortion clinics to meet the requirements of an ambulatory surgical center. The attorneys general argued it was in their interest to promote “the safety of abortion services without creating unwarranted obstacles” and ensuring residents of their states could access abortion in “any State to which they may travel.”
Harris also backed a California law that forced pro-life pregnancy centers to advertise abortions, which was later rejected on First Amendment grounds by the Supreme Court. As attorney general, Harris initiated the investigation into pro-life journalist David Daleiden, whose undercover videos exposed Planned Parenthood’s involvement in fetal tissue trafficking.
Harris has vocally opposed the Supreme Court’s decision to reverse Roe v. Wade in 2022 and made abortion a key issue in her 2024 campaign.
“In the case of the stealing of reproductive freedom from the women of America, Donald Trump is guilty,” she said on the second anniversary of the Court’s decision in June.
Religious Liberty
In a 2014 amicus brief, Harris argued for-profit companies like Hobby Lobby should not be exempt from providing insurance coverage for contraception as required by the Affordable Care Act (ACA), despite religious objections. She opposed religious nonprofits who argued the ACA’s accommodation still burdened their religious exercise in a 2016 amicus brief.
As a senator, Harris reintroduced the Do No Harm Act in 2019, which would prevent religious freedom protections from applying in cases involving discrimination. She said the First Amendment’s freedom of worship guarantee “should never be used to undermine other Americans’ civil rights or subject them to discrimination on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, or gender identity.”
LGBT Issues
In 2013, Harris officiated the state’s first same-sex wedding after the Supreme Court left in place a decision finding Proposition 8, a 2008 state ballot initiative that stated only marriage between a man and a woman valid in California, unconstitutional. Harris refused to defend Proposition 8 in federal court and filed an amicus brief arguing the sponsors of the initiative did not have standing to appeal the ruling finding it unconstitutional.
About to marry the #Prop8 plaintiffs Kristin Perry and Sandra Stier. Wedding bells are ringing!
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) June 28, 2013
When same-sex marriage came before the Supreme Court in the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges case, Harris joined an amicus brief with other Democrat attorneys general urging the justices to affirm “the right of same-sex couples to marry.”
She also worked “behind the scenes” to push forward a policy enabling inmates to obtain gender transition surgeries. (RELATED: ‘Political Judiciary’: Kamala Harris’ Antics During Nomination Hearings Indicate ‘Radical’ Judges She Would Nominate)
Since her time as attorney general, Harris has staked out a more radical position on gender issues. While in the senate, she co-sponsored the Equality Act, which would make sexual orientation and gender identity prohibited categories of discrimination under federal civil rights law, enabling men to access female-only spaces, such as locker rooms and bathrooms, and to compete in women’s sports.
The Biden-Harris administration continues to fight state bans prohibiting sex change surgeries for minors in the courts.
Immigration
In 2012, Harris led 10 other states in opposing Arizona’s immigration law, which made it a state crime not to comply with federal alien-registration requirements and prohibited illegal migrants from working without authorization. It also required officers to verify the immigration status of individuals they stop or arrest and allowed warrantless arrests when an officer believed there was probable cause an individual committed a deportable crime.
The Biden-Harris DOJ sued Texas in January to prevent the state from enforcing a law permitting local and state authorities to arrest migrants who enter the U.S. illegally. The DOJ also sued Iowa in May for a similar law allowing state authorities to arrest and charge illegal migrants who have outstanding deportation orders or reentered after previously being denied access.
The Harris campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
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