Former U. S. Senator Fred Harris is professor emeritus of political science at the University of New Mexico, where he still directs the UNM Fred Harris Congressional Internship Program.

Harris has produced eighteen non-fiction books on politics, government and issues, including Locked in the Poorhouse: Cities, Race and Poverty in the United States, as well as three novels, including the award-winning Coyote Revenge, set in 1930s Oklahoma.