Kamala Harris enters The Bob Zadek Show chiefly as a name invoked by others—a co-sponsor, a candidate, a foil—rather than as a guest. Across the surviving excerpts she is cited in connection with bail reform, single-payer healthcare, the Green New Deal, sex-work policy, and the ideological direction of the Democratic Party. No episode is devoted to her, and no excerpt presents her own words at length.
Bail reform
In the July 27, 2018 episode on bail with Scott Shackford, Bob Zadek previews a segment by noting that “none other than Senator Rand Paul and Senator Kamala Harris have joined forces to initiate some very interesting bail reform measures.” Zadek frames this as notable because bail reform “has somewhat of bipartisan support.” The surrounding discussion concerns judicial incentives: Zadek argues that judges fear headlines about a released defendant who commits another crime, and so have “a profound bias to set high bail when bail maybe is inappropriate only because he’ll never have a headline because he set bail too high, but she might have a headline if she set bail too low.” The episode’s guest, Scott Shackford, is described by Zadek as an associate editor at Reason.com and author of a piece titled “Innocent Until Proven Guilty, But Only If You Can Pay.” Zadek characterizes bail as “the ugly underbelly of the American criminal justice system” and states that its primary purpose is to ensure appearance at trial, not to punish. The excerpt breaks off before the promised discussion of the reform measures themselves and of protective detention How Bail Traps the Poor in Jail with Scott Shackford (2018).
Healthcare and single-payer
Sally Pipes, described as a guest on the August 18, 2019 episode, places Harris among the supporters of single-payer Medicare for All. Pipes names Bernie Sanders, Pramila Jayapal, Elizabeth Warren, and “sometimes the Senator from California, Kamala Harris” as proponents. She recounts that Harris, in Des Moines, Iowa, earlier that year, said, “Yes, I support single-payer. Let’s get rid of the insurance companies. Let’s get rid of—eliminate all of that.” Pipes then says Harris “backtracked on that,” and that in the first debate, when the host asked who supported single-payer, Harris raised her hand along with Sanders, Warren, and Bill de Blasio, but later that night said she “really didn’t understand the question.” Pipes concludes that “deep down, she does support single-payer.” The episode also notes Sanders’ revised plan and his statement that it would probably cost between $30 and $40 trillion over 10 years Sally Pipes on the High Cost of Free Stuff (2019).
The Green New Deal
In the February 14, 2019 episode hosted by fill-in host Charlie Dice, with Mark Joffe of the Reason Foundation as guest, Harris is named as a co-sponsor of the Green New Deal. Dice describes a trend he calls “Russian Roulette,” in which candidates try to out-progressive one another, and identifies Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as setting the tone. He says, “You have Kamala Harris, who’s lined up and said that she’s a co-sponsor of this bill, a Green New Deal,” which he connects to Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal. The episode’s substantive discussion concerns California’s high-speed rail project as a cautionary tale for national climate proposals Not Enough Bricks (2019).
Sex work and SESTA-FOSTA
Cathy Reisenwitz, in the October 2, 2022 episode, names Harris as the sponsor of SESTA-FOSTA. Discussing whether either political party “gets it right” on decriminalization, Reisenwitz says Republicans are “definitely worse on the war on sex than Democrats are,” but adds that “Democrats are not good.” She states: “So SESTA-FOSTA was introduced, I believe, by Kamala Harris, definitely championed by Kamala Harris. There’s a lot of Democrats on board with SESTA-FOSTA.” She notes that legislators submitting sex-work decriminalization bills are, as far as she can tell, all Democrats. Zadek responds that he had not previously considered the distinction between decriminalization and legalization and says Reisenwitz has dissuaded him from viewing legalization as the ultimate goal “I’m From the Government and I’m Here to Help” - Cathy Reisenwitz (2022). The same exchange appears in the October 4, 2022 episode The War on Sex (2022).
The 2020 field and the leftward turn
In the February 21, 2019 episode with law professor John McGinnis, Harris is discussed as a 2020 candidate. McGinnis, whose blog post “The Gathering Storm for Classical Liberalism” prompted the conversation, says the storm against classical liberalism is not mostly due to President Trump but has been gathering for some time, citing elite university faculties that are “wholly antithetical to liberal and classical liberal ideas.” He notes that Bernie Sanders is, on prediction markets, the most likely Democratic nominee at around 20–21 percent, and adds: “Kamala Harris has a large chance. I would consider her not really that different from Sanders.” McGinnis says his concern is less Trump’s policies than “what likely comes afterwards,” and that he is not confident Trump will capture the swing voters needed to remain in the White House in 2020 Here Comes the Storm (2019).
Across episodes
The excerpts show no development in the treatment of Harris across episodes: she is named in a single sentence or short passage in each, always as an example of a broader argument rather than as the subject of examination. The bail-reform mention (2018) presents her as a bipartisan partner of Rand Paul; the healthcare, Green New Deal, and 2020-election mentions (2019) place her on the left of the Democratic field; the sex-work mentions (2022) cast her as the champion of SESTA-FOSTA. The earlier and later treatments do not engage one another, and no guest or host revisits an earlier characterization.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts do not state Harris’ title at the time of most references, her state or city of residence, her prior offices, or any biographical detail beyond her being called “the Senator from California” and a 2020 candidate. They do not describe the contents of the bail reform measures she co-sponsored with Rand Paul, the provisions of SESTA-FOSTA, or the text of the Green New Deal. No excerpt presents Harris speaking at length in her own voice, and none reports a direct interview with her on the program.