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By Kathy Wray Coleman, associate publisher, editor-in-chief
CLEVELAND, Ohio-Vice President Kamala Harris, the nation's first Black and first female vice president, visited Columbus on Friday, Ohio's capital city of nearly a million people and its largest in front of Cleveland, a largely Black major American city of about 372,000 residents. Her visit comes behind congressional passage of President Joe Biden's $1.2 trillion infrastructure deal and efforts by Democrats to get climate change legislation and a host of other spending packages through a divided Congress as the holiday season gets underway. And she pushed the president's domestic agenda, the Build Better Act, proposed legislation that Biden is also fighting to get Congress to approve.
A former junior U.S. Senator-turned-vice president, the vice president spoke before a crowd of Plumbers and Pipe-fitters Local 189 and stressed the importance of the bipartisan infrastructure legislation that Biden signed into law on Monday.
During her trip to the Buckeye state on Friday Harris took the opportunity to comment publicly on Friday's jury verdict that found 18-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse not guilty on all counts after he shot and killed two White Black Lives Matter protesters and injured a third during protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin last year over the police shooting of Jacob Blake.
A former California attorney general, Harris said she was disappointed in the verdict and that "it speaks for itself." And she also pushed for criminal justice reform, saying the nation's legal system remains intrinsically unjust, and unfair.
Touring Ohio with the vice president was U.S. Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh, a Democrat like Biden and Harris, and a former union official who resigned earlier this year as mayor of Boston to join the Biden administration.
Harris began her 14- minute speech in Columbus by describing Walsh, whom she co-leads the task force for worker hand and empowerment for the Biden administration with and who introduced her, as "an incredible union man."
"Our bipartisan infrastructure law will make the most significant investment to fix our roads and bridges in 70 years," said Harris, drawing applause from the union of plumbers and pipe-fitters in attendance.
She said that in Ohio there are nearly 5,000 miles of highway that need repairs, like Interstates 70, which provides access between Indiana and West Virginia, and 71, which runs south of Cleveland through Cincinnati to neighboring Kentucky and ultimately to its largest city of Louisville at the border of Interstate 64.
Passed by Congress on the heels of months of congressional infighting by both Republicans and Democrats alike, the legislation provides for $550 billion in investments in the country's infrastructure, federal monies for infrastructure initiatives across the spectrum, including to repair bridges, roads and Interstate highways, and for water and broadband, public transportation, airports and apprenticeships.
Harris said the new law will modernize ports and airports and that it grants more accessibility for high speed Internet that is necessary "for just getting through the day."
She complimented the nation's labor unions as the economic backbone of the country.
"As the president likes to say, labor unions built the middle class of America," said Harris.
In concluding her speech, the vice president said that Biden's infrastructure law is a significant aspect of the president's economic agenda and that "as we move forward from here let us continue to believe in our people, believe in our country, and believe in what we can do when we work for it together."
Unlike former president Trump, who won Ohio by eight points in 2016 over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, Biden lost Ohio as a presidential nominee, the first time since John F. Kennedy that a Democratic presidential nominee has lost the pivotal state of Ohio and gone on to win the presidency.
Harris, 57, is the first woman of color to compete on a major party presidential ticket in America. Her parents, who divorced when she was five years old, were both immigrants, her mom from Chennai, India, her dad from Jamaica. She won the election for vice president last November when Biden ousted then president Trump, Biden winning both the popular vote and the electoral college. When she accepted the Democratic nomination for vice president relative to the Democratic National Convention in August of 2020 she spoke out on racism, among a number of public policy issues impacting the Black community and others, including the pandemic.
At the time, she blamed the partisan divisiveness in the country on the Trump administration, calling Trump too controversial, and mean spirited.
"The constant chaos leaves us adrift," Harris said of Trump. "The incompetence makes us feel afraid."
With millions of Americans watching across most major television and cable channels, she shined during the vice presidential debate in Salt Lake City, Utah last year, and out performed then vice president Mike Pence, polls said.
Then the California attorney general, Harris was elected to the U.S. Senate for the first time in 2016.
When she was chosen by Biden as his running mate on his presidential ticket, she became the fourth woman to compete on a major party presidential ticket in America behind vice presidential candidates Sarah Palin in 2008 and Geraldine Ferraro in 1984, and behind Hillary Clinton in 2016, Clinton a presidential candidate that year.
Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview, CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.
