California Sen. Kamala Harris is scheduled to speak at what is being billed as the first campaign organizing event in the Los Angeles area for her bid for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination Sunday at Los Angeles Southwest College.
Harris will share her vision for America, encourage Californians to become involved in her campaign and lay out her plans to raise teacher pay, provide middle class tax relief and combat gun violence, according to Ian Sams, her campaign’s national press secretary.
California Secretary of State Alex Padilla, Rep. Katie Hill, D-Agua Dulce, state Sens. Holly Mitchell, D-Los Angeles, and Steve Bradford, D-Gardena, and Assemblywoman Autumn Burke, D-Marina del Rey, are also scheduled to speak.
Members of the public who want to attend the 3 p.m. event should RSVP at www.mobilize.us/kamalaharris/event/91809/.
Los Angeles Southwest College, located in the unincorporated Athens area near Inglewood, was chosen for the site of the event because “we wanted to spotlight the importance of community colleges for expanding pathways to higher education, as well as underscore the importance of making college more affordable and investing in skills training,” Sams told City News Service.
Harris declared her candidacy on Martin Luther King Jr. Day saying she was running for president “to lift those voices” fighting “for our American values.”
“Truth. Justice. Decency. Equality. Freedom. Democracy. These aren’t just words. They’re the values we as Americans cherish and they’re all on the line now,” Harris said at the start at the nearly minute-long video announcing she was running.
Harris has proposed giving average-paid teachers a $13,500 annual pay raise in a plan involving federal and state spending to end what she calls the pay gap between teachers and comparable professionals.
Harris put the price tag for the 10-year plan at approximately $315 billion. It would be paid for by making changes to the estate tax.
Christiana Purves, the Republican National Committee deputy director of regional communications, called the proposal a “big government plan for teachers that will slap new spending mandates on the states.”
In her announcement speech Jan. 27 in her hometown of Oakland, Harris promised to “deliver the largest working and middle-class tax cut in a generation,” up to $500 a month which would be financed by “reversing this administration’s giveaways to big corporations and the top 1 percent.”
Harris has also pledged to make a series of executive actions related to gun manufacturing, background checks by gun purchasers and gun purchases by people with outstanding arrest warrants and domestic violence convictions.