The media scrubbing of past articles to conform with today’s narratives about Vice President Kamala Harris is not limited claims about Harris being the “border czar.” Also, on Wednesday, the website GovTrack scrubbed a 2019 claim that Harris was the Senate’s most liberal member.
On Wednesday, GovTrack was mentioned in an ad by Pennsylvania Senate candidate Dave McCormick as he tried to tie Sen. Bob Casey to Harris. In the ad, CBS’s Norah O’Donnell tells Harris, “The nonpartisan GovTrack has rated you as the most liberal senator.”
Bob Casey just endorsed the most liberal nominee in U.S. history. pic.twitter.com/J0V6W7CUlh
— Dave McCormick (@DaveMcCormickPA) July 23, 2024
The ad then goes on to show several extreme positions Harris took during her failed presidential campaign and subsequently went viral on social media, but as for GovTrack, they added an editor’s note to the bottom of an August 14, 2020 when she was named Biden's running mate:
On July 23, 2024, this article was updated. The text ", especially given our ranking her as the most left-leaning senator in 2019 based on cosponsorship. But looking at the legislation she’s introduced tells a different story — judge for yourself." was removed. Once the 2019--2020 session of Congress was complete, the statistics for the entire session and for Harris's entire tenure in the senate showed a different story.
Clicking on the first link directs the user to an error message, but an archived version of the link affirms that GovTrack did indeed rate Harris as the most liberal senator in 2019. GovTrack is now trying to distance themselves from their own reporting by urging people to consider the entire 2019-2020 session, but clicking on that link informs the user that Harris was the second most liberal senator in front of only Sen. Bernie Sanders. As for Harris’s entire tenure, she still ranks as being more left-wing than Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
Ultimately, none of GovTrack’s attempts to walk back their own research makes any sense. Her ranking may fluctuate from year to year, but anyone who is the most liberal at one point is not a moderate.
