Endorsement of Kamala Harris for President

WHEREAS, the AFT and our 1.8 million members are committed to making a difference in the lives of the students, patients and communities we serve by the work we do, the advocacy we pursue, and the real solutions we bring; and

WHEREAS, the AFT and our members make meaningful change through that work, and through organizing and activism; and

WHEREAS, the AFT and our members engage in politics not as a partisan tactic or destination, but as a means to turn our values and aspirations for a better life into a reality for all people; and

WHEREAS, the 2024 elections are a battle for what kind of country we seek to be: one of community, or one of chaos; one of hope, or one of fear; one of democracy, or one of autocracy; and the stakes are existential, with our freedoms, rights and democracy hinged on the outcome of the election; and

WHEREAS, President Joe Biden will go down as one of the most consequential and meaningful presidents in our history. He has made people’s lives better and has been a champion of workers, families, unions and democracy; and

WHEREAS, Vice President Kamala Harris has been at Biden’s side since day one, fighting for us and with us. President Biden has passed the torch to Harris, announcing his full support and endorsement of Kamala Harris to continue to move America forward, unite the party, and defeat Donald Trump; and

WHEREAS, Vice President Kamala Harris has been a vital partner to President Joe Biden and gets stuff done; and

WHEREAS, Vice President Harris leads the Biden-Harris administration’s fight to restore reproductive freedom, chairs the White House’s Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment, leads the administration’s fight to protect the freedom to vote, worked hard to cap the cost of insulin and lower prescription drug costs, and worked with the president and Congress to pass the first real gun safety law in decades; and

WHEREAS, as a prosecutor, attorney general of California, senator and vice president, Kamala Harris has spent her decadeslong career in public service fighting for working people, families, economic fairness, voting rights, reproductive freedom, keeping communities safe from gun violence, a clean environment, the right to join strong unions, and a strong democracy; and

WHEREAS, Kamala Harris always fights for the people. As attorney general, Harris fought to stop illegal gun sales and went to court to uphold gun safety laws, stood up to Big Oil and polluters to protect clean air and water, advocated for survivors of domestic abuse, and took on the biggest Wall Street banks to win relief for homeowners fleeced during the housing crisis; and

WHEREAS, Kamala Harris has a clear record under the Biden-Harris administration to compare with Donald Trump’s, offering voters a stark choice. Harris can prosecute the case against Trump and his existential threat to democracy like no other candidate; and

WHEREAS, the Biden-Harris administration has fought for the middle class, built an economy from the bottom up by enabling increased wages and economic growth of more than 6 percent, creating more than 15 million new jobs, and reaching the lowest unemployment in 50 years. Donald Trump turned his back on working families during his presidency, when the country lost almost 3 million jobs, while he cut taxes on the rich and paid for it with middle-class tax increases like SALT (state and local tax deduction limitations); and

WHEREAS, the Biden-Harris administration strengthened the Affordable Care Act, weakened the stranglehold of Big Pharma and the healthcare companies by requiring Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices and capping the price of insulin, saving families more than $800 per year. Trump supports Big Pharma and the healthcare companies over working families, and ignored skyrocketing healthcare costs while trying to eliminate the Affordable Care Act, risking health insurance for millions of Americans; and

WHEREAS, the Biden-Harris administration values the role of public education and the freedom of youngsters to thrive by providing record funding for public education to reopen schools safely; to address the myriad issues caused by the pandemic, including school staffing shortages and low pay, crumbling buildings, and mental wellness; and to transform schools for students through investments in technical education and community school programs. Trump and his secretary of education, Betsy DeVos, sought to demonize, defund and destabilize public education, and to open public schools during the once-in-a-century pandemic without appropriate safeguards; and

WHEREAS, the Biden-Harris administration delivered for working families, eliminating crushing student debt for millions of Americans by canceling over $1.5 billion in student loans for public service workers. Trump and DeVos tried to eliminate the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program and made it impossible to get student debt relief that was already authorized by law; and

WHEREAS, the Biden-Harris administration fights for the right of people to retire with dignity, has protected and strengthened Social Security and Medicare, and has saved the pensions of hundreds of thousands of union workers and retirees whose private pensions were at risk. Trump has repeatedly sought to undermine Social Security and Medicare, and is saying he is “open” to cutting Social Security and Medicare, putting at risk the retirement security of millions of working families; and

WHEREAS, the Biden-Harris administration’s judicial appointments include Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first African American female Supreme Court justice, and reflect the diversity of our country and protect our freedoms, rights and democracy. Trump’s judicial appointees have served as an ideological sledgehammer to unprecedentedly attack the rights and protections of people who have historically been discriminated against, including people of color and the LGBTQIA+ community; and

WHEREAS, the Biden-Harris administration has been vigilant in protecting reproductive freedoms and calls for federal law to codify the protections of Roe v. Wade. Trump deliberately appointed three Supreme Court justices for the purpose of overturning Roe v. Wade, resulting in putting women’s health and lives at risk and ending reproductive freedom for millions of women; and

WHEREAS, the Biden-Harris administration knows that immigration strengthens our country, and although there is still much work to be done to fix our nation’s broken immigration system, they support comprehensive, compassionate reform, with increased lawful pathways to the United States, while promoting family unity and stability for noncitizens. Trump demonizes people seeking a better life through immigration and pledges to continue building his border wall; and

WHEREAS, the executive council of the AFT on Oct. 3, 2023, called on the Biden-Harris administration to “take bold action by declaring a national climate emergency in order to address the human-caused crisis brought about by the burning of fossil fuels.” The contrast between presidential candidates is clear: Biden and Harris understand the imminent risk of climate change and, while acknowledging there is more to be done, have made the largest investment in clean energy in history and protected millions of acres of federal land from drilling; conversely, Trump has promised a “drill, baby, drill” policy and to repeal responsible climate change policies; and

WHEREAS, Biden and Harris know that union membership can be transformative and provides a pathway to the middle class, and have supported worker rights; Trump relentlessly attacks unions and sought to weaken workers’ voice through appointing anti-worker voices to the National Labor Relations Board; and

WHEREAS, there is still much work to be done on important economic, climate, healthcare, housing, child care, voting rights and education issues—here and abroad—including addressing the cost of food, gas and housing; and it is clear that Harris understands these issues, share our values and is the right choice in 2024; and

WHEREAS, the choice between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump is clear. Harris has been a vice president who shares our values, fights for the middle class, champions voting rights, and understands that government can help people and that you must accept the decisions of people in elections and in the courts. Trump, a convicted felon himself, is not promising to accept the outcome of the 2024 election, calls the Jan. 6 insurrectionists “patriots” and has even promised to provide a presidential pardon for them, and has said he would be a dictator on day one. The Supreme Court has given Trump a blank check to deliver on all of his autocratic promises; and

WHEREAS, this election is about a candidate who believes in the rule of law versus a candidate who believes in the rule of one; and

WHEREAS, this election is expected to be very close; and apathy, chaos and voter suppression are the tools of autocrats who seek power for their own self-interests. The AFT and our members cannot afford to sit on the sidelines; and

WHEREAS, the AFT’s greatest resource is our members and their trusted role in their workplaces and communities, which makes them important messengers in every election; and

WHEREAS, the AFT and our affiliates must educate, organize and mobilize members and allies to get out the vote in a manner that meets this time of peril, to elect leaders who will represent everyone and see solutions to our shared challenges; and

WHEREAS, Project 2025 is a 900-page extremist agenda designed by close allies of Donald Trump that they intend to implement in the first 180 days if Trump wins. It would cut Social Security and Medicare, eliminate overtime, destroy public education, rip healthcare away from people, allow the government to monitor pregnancies, replace thousands of federal workers with ideologues, dismantle civil rights protections, end efforts to combat climate change, cut taxes for the wealthy, and weaponize the National Labor Relations Board against workers:

RESOLVED, that for all these reasons and for our students, our patients, our families, our communities, our democracy and ourselves, the AFT endorses Kamala Harris for president in the November 2024 general election, subject to the ratification by the delegates to the 2024 AFT convention; and

RESOLVED, that the AFT and our state and local affiliates will recruit and engage members in a coordinated get-out-the-vote effort to ensure they and their families are registered to vote; are informed of the positions of Vice President Kamala Harris, former President Donald Trump and other presidential candidates; and turn out on Election Day; and

RESOLVED, that the AFT and our affiliates will provide the necessary resources and undertake the necessary comprehensive get-out-the-vote programs to educate and organize allies and the general public about the issues and the candidates in the 2024 election; and

RESOLVED, that the AFT, in solidarity, will continue to work with and build a broad coalition effort with the AFL-CIO, other labor unions, and community partners in our collective effort to elect Kamala Harris as the next president of the United States.