Vice President Kamala Harris may have lost the presidential election, but all of her plans need not be relegated to the ash heap of history. With two months left in office, she and President Biden should enact as many of them as possible.
The one I care most about is the Opportunity Agenda for Black Men. While certain aspects require congressional authorization, others need merely a simple stroke of the presidential pen. Between now and Inauguration Day, Biden should use his executive authority to make the promises of Harris’s Opportunity Agenda real for the Black men of this country.
The Harris plan conceives of opportunity in its broadest sense. It touches on wealth creation, healthcare access, housing affordability and more. Under the plan, Black men would stand to gain forgivable loans to start a business, lower taxes and a new voting rights bill. Under basic separation of powers doctrine, no president could unilaterally deliver on those three promises. Biden, however, could scramble to actualize other provisions found in the Opportunity Agenda.
For example, he could formally launch a public-private Health Equity Initiative for Black Men. He could direct the Office of Personnel Management to drop college degree requirements for hundreds of thousands of federal jobs. And he could take additional steps to accelerate the removal of marijuana from the controlled substances list. These actions would comport with federal law, whether under existing statutes or the president’s broad Article II executive powers.
The primary reasons why President Biden should take these steps are threefold.
First, it would be good policy. Black men are at an increased risk of developing diseases like diabetes and prostate cancer. They also face unique barriers to accessing care. Focusing an initiative on understanding and reducing these health inequities could quite literally save lives.
Expanding pathways to federal jobs, meanwhile, could change lives. Federal government jobs offer incredible stability. The median tenure for such jobs is 6.5 years, compared to 3.5 years for private sector jobs. Allowing the 78 percent of Black men without a college degree to compete for those jobs would be a game-changer. And the legalization of marijuana would remove a mechanism that has been used to disproportionately lock up so many Black men.
Second, many of these proposals are broadly popular. A poll conducted last year showed 67 percent of adults believe addressing health disparities should be a priority. During the past two years, over a dozen state governments have taken steps to remove the college degree prerequisite for their public-sector jobs. And support for legalizing marijuana is strong and relatively bipartisan, with around half of Republicans and eight in 10 Democrats in favor. President Biden and Vice President Harris could capitalize on this popularity to improve their own favorability ratings as they prepare to leave office.
And third, beyond being generally popular, these moves would be well received by Black men in particular. Although Harris was praised for releasing her Opportunity Agenda, she did garner some criticism for taking so long to do so. Some argued the plan was part of a reactive effort to curry favor with Black men when it looked like her support among that group may have been slipping. Biden was dogged by similar accusations of pandering in advance of his commencement speech at Morehouse College earlier this year. Absent any immediate electoral incentive, enacting parts of the Opportunity Agenda will allow both leaders to dispel these notions and show Black men that they’re serious about addressing their needs.
At a time when more and more young Black men are starting to lose faith in their leaders, this move could be instrumental in reversing that trend.
Some might argue that Biden should not take these actions because they will simply be overridden by President-elect Donald Trump after Jan. 20. Others, doubting that Trump will unwind these policies, might prefer to not let him claim credit when the policies start to bear fruit.
I cannot predict what Trump will do after taking office. Nor do I think it would be helpful to try. He recently promised restitution for victims of DEI policies. At the same time, he has bragged about having (apparently) “done so much for the Black population.” At the end of the day, Trump will do whatever he thinks will benefit his base.
Biden and Harris, after amassing an impressive record of accomplishments for Black folks over these past four years, should seize this final opportunity to do the same.
Gevin Reynolds is a communications strategist and former speechwriter to Vice President Kamala Harris. He writes about issues of race, democracy and politics as a contributor to The Root.
