Kamala Harris hurt herself and the party by her attack on Biden’s record on busing and civil rights — an attack which isn’t standing up
“Joe Biden said that he was supporting the local school boards doing the decisions … which is tantamount to saying I support state’s rights. And if you need a day to explain that you are not with state’s rights, you only made the situation worse.” 1/14
This is unfair. Harris, by immediately moving on during the debate to the ERA (which Biden supported), *talked over him* and didn’t even give Biden a chance to finish his remarks on busing. 2/14
Biden never *opposed* voluntary school district busing by local school boards. He said so after the debate — when he had a chance to actually finish his sentence — and today. 3/14
And Biden didn’t even oppose mandatory busing, provided it was ordered by federal courts to remedy *de jure* segregation, that is, segregation brought about by state-ordered or state-initiated segregation. 4/14
Biden even opposed (and was the deciding vote in defeating) a 1974 bill in the U.S. Senate (called the Gurney amendment) that would have barred the federal courts from ordering busing as a cure for *de jure* (state-ordered) segregation. 5/14
From Biden’s speech at Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow/PUSH conference today (which was well received): 6/14
A 1971 SCOTUS decision, Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, ruled that federal courts could use busing as a desegregation tool to achieve racial balance (absent a showing of de jure segregation). 7/14
But there have been virtually no *federally ordered* busing programs to cure *de facto* residential segregation for almost forty years. 8/14
If Harris plans to set herself apart from Biden by defending federally mandated busing as a cure for de facto residential segregation (pretty much the only kind that exists in the present day), she’s making a disastrous political mistake. 9/14
She wouldn’t be able to sell that to most *Democrats*. 10/14
Think about it. If, after Harris’s remarks, Maddow had had the presence of mind to ask all the debaters if they supported such a policy (by a show of hands), how many hands do you think would have gone up? 11/14
How many hands do you think would go up if the same debate and the same question were asked today? 12/14
Is Sharpton recommending a vigorous application of Swann (federally mandated busing to cure *de facto* residential segregation)? Is Harris?
I hope not, because I’m certain that advocacy would hurt her and the D Party in 2020 very badly — perhaps irrevocably. 13/14
But if she isn’t, it will turn out that there is no daylight between the two of them on civil rights and busing. In that case, Harris will start to look like a rank opportunist who is willing to hurt Biden and in fact D prospects in 2020 to advance her own candidacy. 14/14
