Biden, Sanders Unveil Policy Groups Including AOC, Kerry, Holder

(Bloomberg) -- Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, former rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination, on Wednesday unveiled the names of dozens of elected officials, scholars and activists who will work to bridge some of the party’s divides on issues such as health care and the economy.

Former Obama administration Secretary of State John Kerry and Attorney General Eric Holder are some of the people who will sit on six committees, as are New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Washington Representative Pramila Jayapal, the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

The task forces are organized around six issues: climate, criminal justice reform, the economy, education, health care and immigration. Each has eight members, evenly divided between Biden and Sanders appointees.

The so-called Unity Task Forces will meet before the Democratic nominating convention in August and make recommendations to the platform committee and to Biden, the party’s presumptive nominee. Biden and Sanders announced plans to create the panels last month as Sanders dropped out of the race. They’re also part of Biden’s broader effort to reach out to progressives who may not have supported him in the primary.

“From health care to reforming our justice system to rebuilding a more inclusive and fair economy, the work of 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,” Biden said in a statement.

Sanders said he commended 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.”

Members of the economy task force include California Representative Karen Bass, International President of the Association of Flight Attendants Sara Nelson and AFL-CIO President Lee Saunders. Biden economic advisers Jared Bernstein and Ben Harris and Sanders adviser Stephanie Kelton are also on the panel.

Kerry and Ocasio-Cortez will lead the climate task force, which also includes Gina McCarthy, who served as head of the Environmental Protection Agency under President Barack Obama. Holder is on the criminal justice panel, along with former acting assistant attorney general Vanita Gupta and Biden senior adviser Symone Sanders, among others. Jayapal, a top Sanders supporter, is a co-chair of the health care panel with former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, who has been advising Biden’s coronavirus response.

One of the starkest differences between Sanders and Biden during the primary campaign was over Sanders’s Medicare for All, which Biden says is too expensive. Biden wants to strengthen Obamacare.

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