Harris’ push for food price control follows endorsement of rent control

On Friday, Vice President Kamala Harris introduced a new proposal that would give federal agencies and state attorneys general new powers to impose fees on food suppliers and grocers who allegedly engage in “price gouging.” While this is considered the first policy proposal from Harris’ campaign and has drawn criticism from across the political spectrum, it is not the first time this summer that Vice President Harris has spoken out in favor of government-mandated price controls.

On July 16, just over two weeks after the presidential debate that helped Harris become the Democratic Party’s nominee this year, she endorsed President Joe Biden’s proposal to impose federal rent control nationwide. That would require passing a law that increases taxes on housing providers that don’t comply with rent controls set by federal agencies. As the Biden-Harris administration pushes forward with federal rent control legislation, it is also pursuing what many see as a parallel legal path to achieve the same goals.

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland’s Justice Department is reportedly preparing a lawsuit against property management software company RealPage. The Biden-Harris Justice Department objects to the company’s algorithmic software that housing providers use to determine fair market value. The attorneys general of Arizona and Washington, DC, have already taken legal action against the company in state court.

The Biden-Harris Justice Department is expected to ask state attorneys general to join them in supporting this lawsuit. In anticipation of this initiative, three former attorneys general and governors, Jim Gilmore, Ken Cuccinelli and Bob McDonnell, recently sent a letter to state attorneys general urging them to reject the Biden-Harris administration’s request to support this Justice Department lawsuit. Critics see the Justice Department lawsuit as a backdoor attempt to push through federal rent controls that would be doomed to fail in Congress.

Gilmore, Cuccinelli and McDonnell argue that the Biden-Harris Justice Department is trying to “manipulate the housing market for political purposes.” They are not alone in viewing this lawsuit as “an unjustified, anti-market lawsuit that would create knowledge gaps around pricing — prevent future construction and investment in the housing industry — and make today’s problems worse, rather than better.”

As tens of thousands of people descend on Chicago this week to attend the Democratic National Convention, the Harris campaign continues to cloak price controls, rent controls, and other interventionist policies in pro-growth but contradictory rhetoric. For example, the Harris campaign has made “a fight for our freedoms” the slogan for the third night of the convention. But it will be difficult for Kamala Harris to sell her agenda as freedom-focused when voters learn how Harris’ policy proposals would lead to less freedom. The upcoming lawsuit by the Biden and Harris Department of Justice against RealPage could be seen as an example of this contradiction, as it seeks to take away housing providers’ freedom to use a product that helps optimize prices.

It’s unlikely that this issue will come up during the DNC’s Freedom Night, but Vice President Harris also wants to strip millions of Americans of the freedom to choose for themselves whether to join a union and pay dues. Because Kamala Harris has made it clear that passing the PRO Act, which would override federal right-to-work laws that protect residents of 26 states from being forced to join a union as a condition of hiring, is a top priority if she wins in November.

This and other contradictions between the Harris campaign’s pro-liberty rhetoric and the policies Kamala Harris supports will be difficult to hide for nearly three months. But by the fall, there should be enough polls to show whether voters are noticing the recurring contradictions between Kamala Harris’s campaign rhetoric and the impact of the policies she proposes or supports.