Coworker Opinions

What do fellow members of Congress think about Kamala Harris?

Published in

3Streams

5 min readAug 12, 2020

Congress, in some regards, is a workplace like any other. Members form friendships and cliques for varied reasons and these networks in turn influence the way the workplace functions. One of the unique features of Congress versus private offices is that while each member has the same basic goal, to be reelected, each legislator answers to a different set of constituent “bosses”. Despite having different constituent to answer to, all legislators do what they can to look their best to constituents.

I study constituent communication and at the heart of any communication, there exists a purpose of creating a connection between the sender and the receiver. In the relationship between legislator and constituents, legislators try to appeal to or impress constituents. Communications researchers call this act “ingratiation”, where speakers attempt to to get in the good graces of their audiences. There are a lot of ways to do this; here I focus on the strategy of “name-dropping”. Name-dropping refers to the use of another person’s name other than the actor or the target to signal some sort of connection that the actor believes will positively influence or impress the target. For example, if Hannah thinks Bella admires Charlotte, and Hannah wishes to command greater respect from Bella, Hannah may mention that she is Charlotte’s friend in a conversation with Bella.

Legislators don’t have to mention other legislators in constituent communications, but they do. As a part of a communication strategy legislators sometimes name-drop other members of Congress to signal credibility, friendship, partnership, or wider support for whatever issue they choose to write about. Alternatively, they’ll single out worthy opponents for scorn, typically leaders of the other party.

To see what fellow legislators think about Harris, I focus on who talks about her in official constituent communications and what they say. Before Harris entered the Senate, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told her constituents about her; applauding after her election in California, commending her commitment to protect middle class families, and for her success in including helpful mortgage protections for borrowers after the housing crisis. In 2015 Karen Bass (D-CA) told constituents of her OpenJustice initiative aimed to improve accountability in California law enforcement.

Her first year in the Senate had people from both sides of the aisle dropping her name in a positive manner. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) touted her as a partner in bail reform legislation, Rob Portman (R-OH) wrote about working with her to increase childhood literacy efforts, and Mark DeSaulnier (D-CA) spoke of preserving wilderness lands.

Name-dropping of Kamala Harris in constituent communications

In 2018 and 2019 there were more negative references from Republicans; both Senators from Utah, Orrin Hatch and Mike Lee criticized her treatment of Justice Kavanaugh during his appointment hearings. While democrats continued to tout her work in areas of rent relief, college loans, and social programs. In 2020 Democrats and one Republican came out to support her legislative efforts to reform policing, voting, and responses to COVID-19.

Aside: At the end of this piece, I’ve included every Act or Bill legislators associated her with. Readers will note this list looks less like the two opposed narratives of Harris as a a cop, or a radical and more like a pragmatic and progressive.

All together, 45 legislators sent 80 messages with positive things to say about Harris, and 10 members sent 11 messages with negative notes. This is a typical amount of name-dropping for any member of Congress who doesn’t hold a leadership position with approximately 49 name dropping connections per session. Who are her biggest public fans and foes in Congress?

Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii tops the chart noting how he and Harris worked together on health care, early warning disaster systems, debt free college legislation and more. Representatives Adams and Beatty positions Harris as an advocate for women. Among republicans, both Senators Cory Gardner and Rob Portman touted her ability to find bipartisan solutions to issues that affected constituents across the U.S.On the other end of the spectrum, Representative Phil Roe held support for the Green New Deal and expansive COVID-19 relief efforts against Senator Harris. Thom Tillis said Harris would be in favor or ending the filibuster.

What does this mean? Taken together, more members of Congress like Harris enough to mention her in communications than those who dislike her enough to do the same. She’s got appeal outside of California. She’s got some appeal with Senators across the aisle. She doesn’t have any negative name drops from within her own party — although that sort of behavior is universally low across this medium. What do members like about her? Judging by the words used in paragraphs that mention her, and legislation associated with her, her fellow congress people seem to think Harris is working on issues of fairness, equality in access to government programs and protections, and justice. Rather than dull media calls that label Harris as a government protecting “cop”, those who work alongside of her in her current role seem to associate many more positive and progressive goals with the Senator.