Harris abandons 2019 pledge to ban plastic straws
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Illustration: Maura Losch/Axios
When Vice President Kamala Harris ran for president in 2020, she said plastic straws should be banned. On Thursday, her campaign says that's no longer her position.
Why it matters: Banning plastic straws to protect the environment and marine life is the latest progressive issue on which Harris and her campaign have either declined to comment or changed her position.
Zoom in: Many parts of the country have banned plastic straws as concerns have grown about plastic pollution in oceans and waterways.
- Seattle became the first major U.S. city to ban plastic straws in the summer of 2018.
- Other countries also have signaled or committed to banning single-use plastic products.
Flashback: During a CNN town hall in 2019, Harris was asked whether plastic straws should be banned.
- "I think we should," she said. "We do need to ban the plastic" straws, she added, saying that paper straws needed to be improved.
Axios asked Harris' current campaign if she still supports that idea.
- "She doesn't support banning plastic straws," a campaign official told Axios.
- "She cast the tie-breaking vote on the most consequential legislation to combat climate change and create clean energy jobs in history, and as President, she is going to be focused on expanding on that progress."
- "She joked even then about how crappy paper straws are and the need to come up with better eco-friendly alternatives," the official said.
Former President Trump's campaign has used her past support of plastic-straw bans in its attacks casting Harris as a San Francisco liberal.
- Trump senior adviser Jason Miller told NBC in July: "I mean, heck, she wants to get rid of plastic straws, for goodness sake."
Between the lines: Harris has a recent pattern of offering few details about her policy agenda and priorities while moving to the center in advance of the Nov. 5 election.
- Through anonymous aides, the campaign has said Harris no longer supports Medicare for All or mandatory gun buyback programs, which she backed during the 2020 Democratic primary as she and other candidates ran to embrace progressive proposals.
- Harris told CNN in late August that she no longer wants to ban fracking — a position she took in the 2020 primary — because she believes "we can grow and we can increase a thriving clean energy economy without banning fracking."
Harris also has promised to sign a bill focused on the southern border that, as part of a larger compromise, would continue to build Trump's border wall.
- She previously called the barrier "un-American" and said she wouldn't "vote for a wall under any circumstances."
- Harris told CNN her "values have not changed," even if some of her policy ideas have.
