Harris says clean water should be a right during Flint speech

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a rally in Flint, Mich., on Oct. 4, 2024. (Photo by Andrew Roth/Michigan Advance)

Vice President Kamala Harris said clean water should be a right during a Friday evening rally in Flint — a city that garnered national attention last decade for its water crisis that exposed thousands to toxic levels of lead.

“You know all too well, Flint, that clean water should be a right for everyone, not just for the people who can afford it,” Harris said at a rally in the Dort Financial Center.

Currently, there is no federally recognized right to water. The United Nations adopted a resolution in 2010 recognizing access to clean water as a human right, but the United States abstained from the vote.

The United States maintained its position on the matter in 2021, with economic and social affairs adviser Sofija Korac explaining that the right was recognized as part of a United Nations treaty that the United States has signed but not ratified.

“We disagree with any assertion that the right to safe drinking water and sanitation is inextricably related to or otherwise essential to enjoyment of other human rights, such as the right to life as properly understood under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,” Korac said.

The Harris campaign and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment on whether the vice president would implement a federal policy recognizing access to clean water as a human right.

Harris likened the Flint water crisis to restrictions on reproductive rights, saying that they are both examples of “a full-on assault on hard-fought, hard-won freedoms.”

The crisis began in 2014 when an emergency manager appointed by Republican former Gov. Rick Snyder changed Flint’s water source from the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department to the Flint River without properly treating the water, exposing the city’s residents to elevated lead levels as aging pipes corroded that left 12 dead.

The rally marked Harris’ first visit to the city since becoming the Democratic nominee for president. Earlier in the day, she did an event in Redford Township in Wayne County.

United Auto Workers (UAW) President Shawn Fain criticized former President Donald Trump, who held a town hall in the same venue on Sept. 17, for having the “audacity” to campaign in “a city that was poisoned by his party.”

Fain called Flint “sacred ground,” noting that the city was home to the 1936 sitdown strike at General Motors’ Fisher Body No. 1, which he said “marked the beginning of a new era for America’s working class.”

“We’re here today because the American dream that was born in Flint is still alive,” Fain said.

United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain speaks at a rally with Vice President Kamala Harris in Flint, Mich., on Oct. 4, 2024. (Photo by Andrew Roth/Michigan Advance)

Trump made no mention of the city’s water – which the Environmental Protection Agency says has lead levels lower than federal safety limits specify, but that many residents still don’t trust – during his town hall.

But he did falsely allege that Harris would ban gas-powered cars, a claim she responded to during her own visit to the city.

“Let us be clear. Contrary to what my opponent is suggesting, I will never tell you what kind of car you have to drive,” Harris said.

Flint, which earned the nickname “Vehicle City” in its heyday, is home to a GM truck plant.

“Let me tell you, we are building heavy-duty gas-powered trucks here. Let’s go,” Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said.

Whitmer said Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, are “giving the middle finger to workers here in Michigan.”

Vance, who campaigned in Michigan on Wednesday, didn’t directly answer a question from The Detroit News about whether a Trump administration would honor or cancel a $500 million grant to subsidize GM converting a Lansing assembly plant into an electric vehicle plant.

“Two days ago, Donald Trump’s running mate suggested that if Trump wins, he might let the Grand River Assembly Plant in Lansing close down – the same plant that our administration helped save earlier this year along with 650 union jobs,” Harris said. “Michigan, we together fought hard for those jobs, and you deserve a president who won’t put them at risk.”

“You cannot tell me you care about the people of Michigan if you’re going to undermine the core of our economy in Michigan,” Whitmer said.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer speaks at a rally with Vice President Kamala Harris in Flint, Mich., on Oct. 4, 2024. (Photo by Andrew Roth/Michigan Advance)

Whitmer said that Trump’s “record on auto jobs, on manufacturing and on putting American workers is failure, failure, failure.”

“We know the pain that when a factory leaves, it takes a whole lot with it,” Whitmer said. “It means fewer kids in our local public schools. It means fewer first responders on the streets and fewer local small businesses. No place in America knows this better than Flint.”

Harris said that she would invest federal funds to “ensure that the next generation of breakthroughs … are not only invented, but built right here in America.”

“When it came to building the cars of the future, Donald Trump sat on the sidelines and let China dominate,” Harris said. “And then he talks down to American workers, saying we can’t compete with Chinese workers.

“I will make sure that America, not China, wins the competition for the 21st century.”

Harris called Trump “one of the biggest losers in American history” after noting that “he said he was the only one who could bring back America’s manufacturing jobs, and then America lost nearly 200,000 manufacturing jobs when he was president.”

“Maybe to a guy like Trump, he doesn’t understand,” Whitmer said. “280,000 jobs lost is 280,000 households that struggle to get by.”

Trump is set to return to Michigan on Thursday to speak at the Detroit Economic Club and Vance is scheduled to hold a Tuesday event in Detroit. Fain is set to join U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) for Harris events across Michigan on Saturday and Sunday.

Jordan Klepper, left, interviews Earvin “Magic” Johnson, right, at a rally with Vice President Kamala Harris in Flint, Mich., on Oct. 4, 2024. (Photo by Andrew Roth/Michigan Advance)

NBA legend and Lansing native Earvin “Magic” Johnson, who endorsed Harris last weekend as part of the launch of “Athletes for Harris,” spoke at the rally and filmed an interview with Jordan Klepper of “The Daily Show” in what he said was an effort to turn out Black voters.

“Our Black men, we’ve got to get them out to vote,” Johnson said. “Kamala’s opponent promised a lot of things last time to the Black community that he did not deliver on. We’ve got to make sure Black men understand that.”

With just over a month to go until Election Day, Harris said that “this is going to be a very tight race until the very end.”

But with millions of absentee ballots already being sent out and early in-person voting beginning statewide on Oct. 26, Harris said that “now is the time to make your plan to vote, because, folks, the election is here.”