Progressives gear up for their first big fight if Harris wins: Protecting Lina Khan
Progressives are promising a big fight if Kamala Harris removes FTC Chair Lina Khan, who has gone after Amazon and Facebook.
WASHINGTON — Anxious liberals have held their fire as Vice President Kamala Harris tacks to the center, but recent calls from some allies that she part ways with a popular, progressive financial regulator if she wins the White House has sparked warnings from her party's left flank of a potential “out and out brawl."
For many in the progressive movement, the question of whether to keep Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan represents a pivotal question about the party’s future: whether it will double down on taking on big corporations and breaking up monopolies and concentrations of power, or walk away from the cause.
“If Vice President Harris wins, her decision whether to replace Lina Khan and other enforcement officials will be the first big test of whether she wants to preserve the broad coalition built by the Biden-Harris administration, or whether she’ll choose ongoing conflict with progressives instead,” said Dan Geldon, a consultant and former chief of staff to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.
With Republicans favored to win the Senate, Harris may have few opportunities to pursue an ambitious legislative agenda, shifting the Democratic ideological fight to key personnel decisions.
“Her decision on Biden-era enforcement officials will also set the tone in her administration around whether officials will be penalized for standing up to powerful people and corporations,” Geldon told NBC News.
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