5 Notable Policies From Kamala Harris’s New Platform

Kamala Harris’s campaign unveiled its policy platform on Harris’s campaign website over the weekend, as the vice-president prepares to take on Donald Trump in Tuesday’s high-stakes presidential debate. Under the heading “A New Way Forward,” the campaign divided its issues into various areas of focus including the economy, foreign policy, and protecting “fundamental freedoms,” which includes abortion rights and civil rights. Each policy area features a section on Project 2025, contrasting the Harris-Walz campaign stance against the Heritage Foundation–backed plan that Trump has attempted to disavow. Here are some highlights from Harris’s proposals.

Ending subminimum tipped wages

Under her economic policy, Harris calls for the end of “subminimum wages for tipped workers and people with disabilities” in what appears to be a new proposal. Under federal law, employers only have to pay their tipped workers $2.13 per hour as long as that amount, with the addition of tips, equals the current federal minimum wage of $7.25. The vice-president is also calling for raising that minimum, though she did not specify a figure. And she wants to eliminate taxes on tips, which Trump has also proposed, and which economists are less enthusiastic about.

Pledges to build 3 million units and homes

In Harris’s plan to address housing scarcity, she is pushing for the construction of 3 million rental units and homes in her first term as president. She’s also promising to “provide first-time homebuyers with up to $25,000 to help with their down payments, with more generous support for first-generation homeowners,” per the campaign’s website.

Addressing high costs

Harris has made tackling high costs a key part of her economic policies in an attempt to take on inflation, consistently near the top of voters’ concerns. As part of her new platform, she’s backing a ban on corporate price-gouging as well as on price-fixing by corporate landlords, which she says contributes to excessive expenses for the average consumer and renter. Harris first raised these messages during an economy address in Raleigh, her first policy speech since becoming the nominee.

On health-care costs, the vice-president is also promising to expand the $2,000 cap on out-of-pocket spending as well as the $35 cap on insulin from seniors to all Americans.

Supreme Court ethics

Harris indicated support for “common-sense” Supreme Court reforms in order to address the body’s waning support from the American people. Specifically, her campaign noted that she backs “requiring Justices to comply with ethics rules that other federal judges are bound by and imposing term limits.”

Vows to sign Roe, labor protections into law

A significant portion of the Harris-Walz platform revolves around the legislation that Harris has vowed to pass into law if elected president. Among these are the PRO Act, which expands labor protections as well as the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act, which protects the right for public sector employees to organize and join a union. She’s also promising to sign bills codifying Roe v. Wade and banning assault rifles.

Harris is also vowing to sign the bipartisan border bill that failed to pass Congress earlier this year after Republicans came out in droves in opposition to it. In her platform, the campaign highlighted the legislation’s funding of detection technology to stop drug trafficking as well as its addition of more border agents. However, these promises hinge on the Democratic Party’s ability to retain and gain seats in both chambers of Congress in November, a scenario that’s far from a given in this close and contentious election cycle.