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HOUSTON – Senator Kamala D. Harris made the first major political announcement of her campaign on Saturday, promising to use federal funds to raise teachers' salaries while addressing a turbulent crowd at Texas Southern University.
Harris has not revealed the details of the plan, which according to his campaign, will be released within a few days. But the crowd of 2,400 gathered in this historically black school has shown its ability to attract a diverse gathering, including elderly white voters from the Houston area, Latino students arriving from the University of Texas at Austin and a large number of African-American voters.
In a bit of political theater, Harris (D-Calif.) Organized the rally in the home country of the former congressman, Beto O. Rourke, a little more than a year ago. a week after the launch of the presidential campaign by O & # Rourke. bears his name. Texas is also the home state of former San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro, who also hopes to be named Democrat.
"The biggest measure of a society is the way it treats its children," Harris said. "So I came to Harris County today to announce, and announce for the first time publicly, an initiative that I propose that will be the largest federal investment in teacher salaries in American history. . "
Harris did not explain how her plan would work, how much it would cost or how she would pay it. Instead, she suggested that the initiative be considered an investment that could generate an attractive return for society.
By targeting teachers, Harris became the first candidate to approach the group, mostly women, politically active professionals, with a policy proposal that directly addresses their concerns.
O'Rourke's candidacy has dominated the cycle of the campaign's announcement in recent weeks. The stories of his remarks, often spoken informally from restaurant counters, mixed with the reports of Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Who often attended the same supporters who supported his race in 2016.
Meanwhile, the Harris campaign has been long and busy. As an American of African and Asian descent, Harris connects with diverse communities further away from other candidates.
Harris raised funds last week in Texas and California, two states that hold primary elections on Tuesday, March 3, 2020 – when several key states will hold elections.
She was scheduled to hold another rally Sunday at a historically black school, the Morehouse College, in Atlanta. Harris, a graduate of Howard University in the district, put black universities and colleges at the center of his early schedule.
But it tends to attract diverse crowds in various venues, including Friday at an Embassy Suites hotel attached to a Bass Pro Shops outlet in Grapevine, Texas.
"Look at this magnificent rainbow in front of me," said state representative Ramón Romero Jr. while warming this audience. Tarrant County, where Grapevine is located, is also home to Fort Worth, which has been supporting the Republican presidential candidate for years – but that President Trump won with 52% of the vote in 2016 and O'Rourke in 2018.
"I was a Beto supporter for the Senate, not for the President," said Jennifer Giles, 45, a small business owner and Harris supporter from Flower Mound, Texas, who was attending gathering. "Once we see the debates and we see these candidates next to each other, I think the stellar candidates will be obvious, and that the experience and the gravity will be at the rendezvous -you."
Harris is not the only one among the Democratic candidates to venture further and further into the first primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. With an overcrowded Democratic group, currently 15 years old and likely to develop, several candidates could survive well beyond the first primaries, encouraging them to try to strengthen themselves in other states.
Unlike many other candidates, Harris also raises opposition from the GOP. On Friday, she was greeted by members of Open Carry Texas, a gun rights organization whose members carried guns in the parking lot outside her protest. It also attracted conservative demonstrations in South Carolina, but none of these events disrupted it.
On Saturday, his announcement was hailed by the American Federation of Teachers, a group that claims to represent nearly 1.7 million teachers in the country and has long been a political force.
"Paying educators less than other qualified university graduates has been a problem for a long time," tweeted AFT President Randi Weingarten.
Teachers have recently started a strike in several major US cities, including Harris' hometown of Oakland, California, and Harris has expressed solidarity with these actions.
Saturday's pay announcement responded to a central demand from strikers by promising to narrow the pay gap between teachers and other professionals. In the United States, teachers earn an average of $ 11,000 less per year than similar professionals with a university degree, according to a study by the Economic Policy Institute. Color teachers do even less.
However, in the absence of details available, it was impossible to say how the initiative would work.
Harris has advocated for several policies that would require significant federal spending. In the Senate, she introduced a tax credit for the middle class. To help finance these measures, Harris wants to raise the taxes of the rich, but analysts have suggested that his measures to increase his income would not allow him to fully finance his political goals.
"I know what people will say after today:" How is she going to pay for this? Harris said, "People in the private sector understand that if you want to be smart in managing your business, you understand that you can invest in. You understand that your analysis does not say how much it costs, the question is , what is the return on investment? "
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