LAS VEGAS (AP) — Kamala Harris will be the first Democratic presidential candidate next week to hold a town hall with the powerful casino workers’ Culinary Union in Las Vegas.
The union’s national affiliate Unite Here announced the Nov. 8 event on Monday.
The Culinary Workers Union Local 226 represents bartenders, housekeepers and other workers in the city’s famed casinos. It offers one of the most powerful endorsements in Nevada Democratic politics.
The union’s leaders have had private meetings with most of the presidential candidates but Harris is the first to be invited to a town hall with the union’s rank-and-file members. The union said Harris’ event will be the first in a series of town halls with the top Democratic presidential candidates.
Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, who was considering a run for president but did not jump in, had a town hall with the union in February.
Culinary’s 60,000 members are mostly women and mostly immigrants, and immigration reform, health care and worker’s issues are among the union’s top priorities.
Union leaders and members have said they have concerns about some of the “Medicare for All” plans backed by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren because many union members who fought hard for good insurance want to keep their coverage.
Harris is a co-sponsor of “Medicare for All” legislation, but the California senator now says she doesn’t favor its call to scrap all private health insurance.