Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders have named leaders and members of a joint unity task force to promote unity in the Democratic Party ahead of the November election.
The action follows through on Sanders’ pledge to work together with Biden to defeat Trump by forming an advisory committee to the Biden campaign on six key policy areas: climate change, criminal justice reform, economy, education, health care, and immigration.
The two co-chairs of the committe are Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has all but formally endorsed Biden, and John Kerry, who was an early Biden supporter.
Apart from Ocasio-Cortez and Kerry, the groups’ co-chairs include Chiraag Bains, director of legal strategies for the liberal think tank Demos; California Rep. Karen Bass; Ohio Rep. Marcia Fudge; Dr. Heather Gautney, a sociology professor and former Senate staffer; Marielena Hincapié, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center; Washington Rep. Pramila Jayapal; former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy; union activist Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA; California Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard; and Virginia Rep. Bobby Scott.
Ocasio-Cortez and other progressives are hopeful additions to help persuade left leaning voters that Biden will be listening to their recommendations.
Biden said in a statement that a “united party is key to defeating” the president in six months, as well as “moving our country forward through an unprecedented crisis.” The task forces “will be essential to identifying ways to build on our progress and not simply turn the clock back to a time before Donald Trump, but transform our country,” he said.
“In the midst of the unprecedented economic and pandemic crises we face, the Democratic Party must think big, act boldly, and fight to change the direction of this country,” Sanders said in his own statement, adding: “I commend Joe Biden for working together with my campaign to assemble a group of leading thinkers and activists who can and will unify our party in a transformational and progressive direction.”
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