BIDEN: The senator knows that that's not my position. Everybody on this stage has been in the Congress has voted for the Hyde Amendment at some point.
Fact-Check from Vice.com, 6/14/19: [Is Biden right? Yes.] The contenders for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination have made reversing the Hyde Amendment--a measure that blocks federal funding for abortion--a top priority on the campaign trail. Members of Congress don't vote directly on Hyde; rather, they vote for the enormous package of spending bills that include Hyde. Democrats running for the White House have tried to capitalize on that technicality. Harris has backed a bill that would effectively repeal Hyde. (It's unlikely to pass.)
The context: Gabbard is referring to the case of Kevin Cooper, a Death Row inmate convicted of quadruple murder in 1983. Harris, during her tenure as attorney general, declined to use advanced DNA testing in the widely publicized case.
Last year, after the New York Times published an investigative piece on Cooper's case, then-Sen. Harris backtracked, saying, "I feel awful about this," and that she hoped the governor would order the testing. In February, Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered new tests. The results are pending.
[Is that true? FactCheck by Vox.com:]
In 2004, as district attorney of San Francisco, she refused to seek the death penalty against a man convicted of shooting police officer Isaac Espinoza. She faced opposition from fellow Democrats; Sen. Dianne Feinstein called for the death penalty at the officer's funeral. But Harris didn't budge--an act of principle that cost her key political allies (as she received almost no support from police groups during her first run for attorney general in 2010).
The context: Yes, both districts have struggled to better integrate. But it was difficult -- and highly unusual -- for a state attorney general at that time to file suit to desegregate a school, said [a California schools expert].
A series of federal court decisions in the mid-1990s made it much tougher to bring desegregation lawsuits. Few state attorneys general even try. "There was nothing she could really do in San Francisco to force the district to use race-conscious efforts to desegregate the schools. The legal standard would be very difficult to prove," the expert said. "San Francisco has tried a lot of different things to make less segregated schools -- it's just a very difficult thing to do."
Harris: I have to agree with Governor Inslee. We currently have a president in the White House who obviously does not understand the science. The guy thinks that wind turbines cause cancer, but what in fact what they cause is jobs. I would take any Democrat on this stage over the current president of the United States. We must have and adopt a Green New Deal. On day one I would re-enter us in the Paris agreement. And put in place so we would be carbon neutral by 2030.
HARRIS: I have been spending time in this campaign listening to American families, listening to experts, listening to health care providers, and what I came away with is a very clear understanding that I needed to create a plan that was responsive to the needs of the American people, understanding that insurance companies have been jacking up the prices for far too long. I listened to the American families who said four years is just not enough to transition into this new plan, so I devised a plan where it's going to be 10 years of a transition. I listened to American families who said I want an option that will be under your Medicare system that allows a private plan.
BIDEN: The plan costs $3 trillion [annually]. Ten years from now, after two terms of the senator being president, after her time. Secondly, it will require middle-class taxes to go up, not down. Thirdly, it will eliminate employer-based insurance. And fourthly, what happens in the meantime?
HARRIS: The cost of doing nothing is far too expensive. We are now paying $3 trillion a year for health care in America. Over the next 10 years, it's probably going to be $6 trillion. We must act. My plan is about immediately allowing people to sign up and get into coverage.
HARRIS: My plan does not offer anything that is illegal. What it does is it separates the employer from healthcare, meaning that the kind of healthcare you get will not be a function of where you work. I have me met so many Americans who stick to a job that they do not like, where they are not prospering simply because they need the healthcare that that employer provides. It's time that we separate employers from the kind of healthcare people get and under my plan, we do that as it relates to the insurance and the pharmaceutical companies, who will not be taken to task by Senator Bennet's plan. We will do that.
BENNET: We need to be honest about what's in this plan. It bans employer based insurance and taxes the middle class to the tune of $30 trillion
Harris: In terms of the point that Senator Gillibrand is raising, I couldn't agree more. Senator Biden, your plan will keep and allow insurance companies to remain with status quo, doing business as usual, and that's going to be about jacking up co-pays, jacking up deductibles.
Kamala Harris: Let's talk about math. Let's talk about the fact that pharmaceutical and insurance companies last year profited $72 billion on the backs of American families. Under your plan, you do nothing to hold the insurance companies to task for what they have been doing to American families. Today diabetes patients, one in four cannot afford insulin. For those people who have overdosed from an opioid, there is a syringe that costs $4,000 that will save their life. It is immoral. It is untenable.
BENNET: I disagree that we should decriminalize our border.
HARRIS: I went to a place in Florida called Homestead, and there is a private detention facility that currently houses 2,700 children. There were members of Congress there, [including Julian Castro, but] they would not let us enter the place. So I walked down the road, I climbed a ladder, and I looked over the fence. And I'm going to tell you what I saw. I saw children lined up single file based on gender being walked into barracks. The policies of this administration have been facilitated by laws on the books that allow them to be incarcerated as though they've committed crimes. These children have not committed crimes and should be not treated like criminals.
BENNET: There's not a single person on this stage who would ever separate a child from their parents at the border.
HARRIS: I would never direct the Department of Justice to do whatever it believes it should do. But we all watched the Mueller testimony. I've read the report. There are 10 clear incidents of obstruction of justice by this president, and he needs to be held accountable. I have seen people go to prison for far less. And we have a person in the White House right now who has been shielded by a memo that says a sitting president cannot be indicted. The American people are right to say there should be consequence and accountability for everyone and no one is above the law, including the president.
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The above quotations are from Democratic candidates debate in Detroit Michigan, July 30-31, 2019.
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