(AP) – Former Vice President Joe Biden says Kamala Harris mispresented his position on school busing decades ago, but he doesn’t think she did it intentionally.
The California senator challenged Biden’s stance on busing to desegregate public schools during the 1970s during Thursday’s Democratic debate in Miami. Harris, who is black, was part of a busing program as a child and her pointed questioning of Biden was one of the night’s breakout moments.
Biden said he didn’t oppose busing but federal intervention in the issue.
But in the early and mid-1970s, those were the fault lines in almost every U.S. community, from New Orleans to Boston, where there was stiff opposition to busing. If you were a politician opposing federally enforced busing, you were enabling any local school board or city government that was fighting against it.
