Harris VP candidate changes tune on pro-union bill after progressive angst

Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) has changed his tune on pro-union legislation as he remains a leading contender to become Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate. 

Kelly would vote in favor of the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, according to the Huff Post, a decision that walks back concerns he voiced previously. The PRO Act streamlines the path toward forming labor unions and winning labor contracts. 

Kelly’s announcement comes as Harris’s campaign has vetted the swing state senator to be her vice presidential candidate. The junior senator from Arizona is a former NASA astronaut and Navy combat pilot. Now, he’s among the vice presidential contenders who have received vetting materials from Harris, according to multiple reports.

Harris is known for her enthusiastic support for labor unions, which form a critical component of the Democratic coalition. On Monday, the AFL-CIO, one of the most powerful union federations in the country, endorsed the vice president. Already considered one of Harris’s top contenders for a running mate, Kelly’s decision to drop his opposition to the union bill could be a move aimed at garnering the presumed Democratic nominee’s favor. 

Before Kelly changed his tune on the PRO Act, Democratic allies warned they weren’t willing to support him if he didn’t sign onto the pro-union bill. 

“Why would the Democrats even consider a senator for the vice presidency if the senator doesn’t support the PRO Act?” John Samuelsen, the progressive president of the Transport Workers Union, told ABC News. “It’s the most important piece of national legislation workers have right now.”

While Kelly took office in 2020, he declined to wield his support for the PRO Act, telling the Huff Post in 2021 that he “would like to see some changes” to the bill. 

“I do have some concerns with the legislation, specifically things about who qualifies as an independent contractor,” the Democratic senator said at the time. “Sometimes employers often use that to their advantage. In other cases, I do think people should be able to be independent contractors.”

Three years later, he told the newspaper a different story. “Unions loom large in our life, and I’m supportive of the PRO Act,” Kelly said. “I would have voted for it on Day 1. I would vote for it today. I am, like a lot of legislation, working to make it better. But if it came to the floor today or any day going back to the day I was sworn in, I would vote for it.”