Kamala Harris Now Says She Won’t Accept Corporate PAC Money

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) joined a cadre of her progressive Democratic colleagues Monday by saying that she will not accept corporate PAC money.

She made the comments during an interview with the New York radio show The Breakfast Club, marking a shift in her public comments on the issue as of late.

“I did a town hall a couple weeks ago in California and I was asked that question,” Harris told host Charlamagne Tha God. “And I wasn’t expecting the question and I thought about it afterwards. And I’m gonna tell you Charlamagne. I actually, I think that money has had such an outside influence on politics, and especially with the Supreme Court—it determining Citizens United, which basically means that big corporations can spend unlimited amounts of money influencing a campaign, right? We’re all supposed to have an equal vote. But money has now really tipped the balance between an individual having equal power in an election to a corporation. So I’ve actually made a decision since I had that conversation that I’m not gonna accept corporate PAC checks.”

Harris, often mentioned as a potential candidate for president in 2020, joins Senators Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Bernie Sanders in this pledge.

At a town hall in California this month, Harris was asked by an audience member if she would turn down money offered to her from a corporation or corporate lobbyist.

Harris said “Well, it depends. It depends”—prompting the audience member to quickly respond “Wrong answer.”

“Well, that’s not the answer you want to hear,” Harris continued. “It doesn’t make it wrong.”

“I appreciate the reason that you’re asking it. I do appreciate that,” Harris told the audience member. “And that’s why we have rules that require that any donation that anyone receives needs to be disclosed. So that you can do an assessment, and the voters can do an assessment, and look at where the contributions come from and make your decisions about whether those contributions have influenced the way that people act and the way that people vote.”