Monday, April 20, 2015

Clinton's Policy Team to be Led by CAP Alum

It was recently announced that Hillary Clinton has named three senior policy advisers to lead the development of her agenda for her 2016 presidential campaign.  Leading that team will be Maya Harris, a former Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress (CAP).

Of course, there will be lots of CAP-affiliated people on Clinton's team.  Here is more from Politico:
The three policy leaders will be the official top wonks, but they aren’t the only Clinton advisers with policy backgrounds. John Podesta, the campaign chairman, headed President Barack Obama’s executive action agenda until earlier this year and was the founder of the Center for American Progress. Clinton’s also likely to keep getting informal advice from Neera Tanden, the current president of CAP and a longtime adviser.
And Tony Carrk, the campaign research director, has a background in health care policy, particularly Obamacare. He was the director of the “health care war room” at the CAP Action Fund.

Here is a biography of Maya Harris from CAP.  Ezra Klein of Vox has called Harris "Clinton's most interesting hire yet," and noted that she published only a single paper while at the think tank.  Klein thinks that the paper, titled "Women of Color: A Growing Force in the American Electorate," may prove to be "key to Clinton's 2016 efforts to hold, and even expand, Obama's coalition."

As Think Tank Watch noted, Hillary Clinton recently tested one of her possible vice presidential running mates at CAP.

And while CAP may be Clinton's go-to think tank for ideas and talent, it is not the only think tank she will be relying on.

The Clinton campaign recently said that it relied on a study by the union-backed Economic Policy Institute (EPI) when Clinton said that CEO's make 300 times more than the American worker.  A link to that EPI study, which was authored by Lawrence Mishel and Alyssa Davis, can be found here.