By admin 
Kamala Harris wins Nickelodeon’s ‘Kids’ Vote’ poll
During Nickelodeon’s “Kids Pick the President” special, Vice President Kamala Harris was declared the winner of the “Kids’ Vote” poll.
WASHINGTON – As a Democratic candidate Kamala Harris If elected president, she would soon try to make deals with her former Capitol Hill colleagues.
Harris spent four years in the U.S. Senate representing California, the nation’s most populous state. Former Senate colleagues and supporters of the new House told USA TODAY her time in Congress was short, she has strong relationships there that would be crucial to pushing her legislative agenda in a political environment where she had just defeated Donald Trump but can still count on tough Republican opposition.
Harris’ star rose to prominence in the Senate as a lawmaker willing to show off her prosecutorial skills: She went viral in 2018 when she questioned now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings.
Then-President Trump said she was “extremely mean” at the time. And a soundbite from that discussion has become oft-quoted campaign fodder this cycle for Democrats committed to abortion rights: Harris asks Kavanaugh whether he can name ‘laws that give the government the power to make decisions about the male body’.
Harris returned to the Senate relatively often in the first two years of the Biden administration, when the chamber was evenly divided. casting the deciding vote more times than any other vice president in American history.
Since launching her presidential campaign this summer, she has drafted a legion of House members as surrogates, bringing into the fold of lawmakers who felt they were held at arm’s length by the Biden campaign and which Harris had not found just as easy to reach when she was a senator.
Harris has years of experience working with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, and also has a longstanding relationship with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, which was first formed through the Congressional Black Caucus. Jeffries, also a New Yorker, is well positioned to become speaker of the House of Representatives if Democrats regain control of the chamber next year and remain as minority leader should the Republican Party emerge victorious.
Even if Democrats win both chambers, Harris would still face some obstacles to achieving big things. Legislation would need to overcome the 60-vote threshold imposed by opponents threatening to use the Senate filibuster — although Harris also said during the campaign that she would historical change in procedure which allow exceptions for important issues such as the right to abortion. If Republicans win either chamber, as they are expected to do in the Senate, they will have to make deals to get substantive legislation passed and will likely face aggressive scrutiny from conservative lawmakers — and hurdles in confirming its appointments to cabinet roles. and to fill judicial vacancies.
Harris’ current boss, President Joe Biden, could be described as a creature of the Senate — and he certainly is took advantage of his decades-long career in the upstairs room while living in the White House. Harris’ allies say she would bring new perspectives and a fresh approach to dealing with Congress.
Allies of the Senate
Some of Harris’ most trusted Democratic partners entered the Senate in 2017, the same year she did: Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, Tammy Duckworth of Illinois and Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire.
Cortez Masto and Harris had forged an old friendship when they were both attorneys general. The couple sued the big banks in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis and won a $20 billion settlement.
“Then we just got to know each other, trust each other, like each other,” said Cortez Masto, who has been a regular surrogate for Harris during the campaign and who has helped her research her potential vice presidential candidates.
Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., with whom Harris served on the Judiciary Committee, is often cited as one of her closest allies on the Hill, as are Senate President Pro Tempore and Appropriations Committee Chairman Patty Murray, D-Wash. Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, and Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn.
Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla, who was California secretary of state when Harris was in the Senate and who replaced her when she became vice president, remains a close friend, as does Sen. Laphonza Butler, who was a policy adviser to Harris’ campaign in 2019. but who will leave the chamber in November after failing to run for a full term in the Senate.
And if she wins her closely contested race for a Senate seat representing Maryland against former Gov. Larry Hogan, Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks would bring a friendship with Harris to the chamber that started 14 years ago when Harris was the district attorney in San Francisco. Harris called Alsobrooks to congratulate her on winning her underdog race for state attorney in Maryland’s Prince George’s County.
Harris still has a good relationship with Schumer, who made an exception to help her get a spot on a select committee, the Judiciary, despite another California senator, the late Dianne Feinstein, also being on the panel. It allowed Harris to capitalize on her prosecutorial background during battles over Trump’s eventual first-term Supreme Court nominees.
As vice president, Harris has also kept in touch with Sen. Mark Warner, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who was the top Democrat on the panel when Harris served on it.
“I think she’ll come away with an appreciation that you have to work with Congress,” the Virginia Democrat said. “She comes with relationships, but also with a willingness to roll up her sleeves.”
Warner said she had also built positive relationships with Republicans on the committee, but said he did not want to “put them in a difficult position” by naming them: “Maybe they should say something different now.”
Harris has organized a group Surrogates for the GOP campaign and promised to appoint a Republican to her Cabinet. She may find Republican allies in the Senate among moderates who have not supported Trump: Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, with whom she served on the Intelligence Committee, as well as Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska; Todd Young, R-Ind., and Bill Cassidy, R-La.
Former Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., who now serves as the Biden-appointed U.S. ambassador to Turkey, recalled working with Harris on efforts to expand the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which temporarily protects young people against deportation who were released illegally. brought to the US as children.
Congress still hasn’t found a solution to improve the country’s immigration system, but Flake said of Harris, “She understands that can only happen in a bipartisan way.”
House allies
Harris’ selection of congressional friends favors the Senate, but she still has close relationships to lean on in the House.
She has ties to Jeffries during her time as a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, and if Democrats take over the House and White House, they would be a historic combination as the first Black House Speaker and the first female president. Harris has also kept in touch with several members of the group, including the group’s current chairman, Steven Horsford, DN.V.
Harris has also built a good relationship with House co-chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Rep. Nanette Barragán, D-California, and was a leader of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus during her time in Congress. She invited Horsford, Barragan and Rep. Judy Chu, a California Democrat and caucus chair, to sitting in her box during her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention.
Democratic rising stars Reps. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, Nikema Williams, D-Ga., all consider Harris a mentor.
Speaking at the Democratic National Convention, Crockett said she wasn’t sure she made the right choice in running for the House of Representatives when she arrived in Washington in January 2023. The first time she met Harris as vice president, she said, “she saw right through me. She saw the need. I immediately started crying. And the most powerful woman in the world wiped my tears and listened.”
Harris is also one old mentor to organizer Lateefah Simon, who is all but guaranteed to win her Bay Area congressional race and head to the House of Representatives next year.
And she has chosen staff with deep ties to the House of Representatives: Her director of legislative affairs as vice president is Andy Flick, who was executive director of the centrist New Democrat Coalition, a crucial bloc of the Democratic caucus.