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Harris enters the race,
once again, after faltering early in the Democratic
primaries, unable to gain traction in the crowded field and
unable to clearly define herself as either a progressive or
moderate. However, her campaign was not hindered by any
inability on her part to raise money – she ultimately raised
more than $35 million in less than a year. Her fundraising
ability was, undoubtedly, an important factor in Biden’s
decision to name her to the ticket.
Harris, the offspring of
an Indian immigrant mother, a cancer researcher, and a
Jamaican father, a professor of economics, was born in
Oakland, CA, and spent part of her youth in Canada, where
her mother moved the family after her divorce to take a
teaching position at McGill University.
Harris graduated high
school in Canada and entered Howard University, joining
Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc, the country’s oldest black
sorority.
After earning her
undergraduate degree, Harris returned to California to enter
UC-Hastings College of Law. Thereafter she became a
prosecutor in northern California and in 2003 was elected
district attorney of San Francisco.
“There has been much talk
about the time Sen. Kamala Harris spent as a prosecutor,”
wrote Niki Solis, a deputy public defender in San Francisco,
for USA Today last week. “As a public defender for 24 years,
I examined, critiqued and battled Harris when she was the
San Francisco district attorney. And more often than not,
Harris and I were on opposite sides.
“Having had this
experience, I feel compelled to speak on Harris’ record
while she was a district attorney. Simply put, Harris was
the most progressive prosecutor in the state … As San
Francisco DA, Harris refused to seek the death penalty …
marijuana sales were routinely reduced to misdemeanors and
marijuana possession cases were not even on the court’s
docket. They simply were not charged … The accusations about
marijuana prosecutions being harsh during her tenure are
absurd. The reality was quite the opposite.”
In 2005, District Attorney
Harris introduced an initiative to reduce recidivism among
first-time drug traffickers, called “Back on Track.” The
12-18 month program provided a personal responsibility plan
to participants consisting of setting employment, parenting
and educational goals.
“Shutting the revolving
door of the criminal justice system requires innovative,
results-driven policies and initiatives that help offenders
get their lives back on track,” said Harris.
Elected as the California
Attorney General in 2011, Harris’ office became the nation’s
first statewide agency to adopt a body camera program and
also to mandate law enforcement training for its personnel.
Harris, concerned about
the large numbers of truant students, arranged to have a law
passed that would impose fines on parents if their student
missed a certain number of school days without a valid
excuse. The program didn’t work on a statewide basis because
certain jurisdictions took it upon themselves to criminalize
the parents’ actions and because the one-size-fits-all
solution penalized too many parents for situations beyond
their control. Harris would apologize for the program’s
deficiencies.
Harris has evolved on the
issue of legalizing marijuana, supporting only the
state-approved legal use of medicinal marijuana up until
2015 when she called for an end to the federal ban on the
medicinal use. In 2018, as senator, she co-signed Senator
Cory Booker’s Marijuana Justice Act to make the use legal on
a federal level.
Harris had a significant
role, as attorney general, in a $25 billion national
settlement with big banks regarding their practices during a
housing and foreclosure crisis. The goal was to get the five
largest mortgage service firms, including JP Morgan Chase
and Citigroup, to strengthen protections for borrowers
targeted by predatory lenders.
She pulled out of the
talks in 2011 because she felt the deal, hammered out by
other states’ attorneys general, wasn’t tough enough on the
banks.
Harris ran for an open
Senate seat in 2016 to replace Barbara Boxer.
As a senator, she has
supported healthcare reform, federal
legalization of cannabis,
a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, the DREAM
Act, a
ban on assault weapons
and progressive
tax reform. She
has been rated as the most liberal senator by GovTrack.us, a
government watchdog group, on their website with an
“ideology score” of 0.0 (most liberal) – based on a
senator’s legislative behavior – the pattern of bills and
resolutions he or she co-sponsors compared to colleagues. By
comparison, the score for the second most liberal member,
Senator Bernie Sanders, was 0.02 for the same time frame.
Harris gained national recognition for her pointed
questioning of Trump
administration officials
and appointees during Senate
hearings, earning praise from fellow Democrats and
condemnation from Trump who has called her “nasty” and
“angry” for her questioning of Supreme Court nominee Brett
Kavanaugh.
“I mean, I’ve never seen anything like it, she was the
angriest of the group,” he said
“An angry black woman” may prove to be the Trump’s most
enduring racist, sexist line of attack on Harris during
these last 75 days of Election 2020.
During the 2016 election cycle, First Lady Michelle Obama
popularized a mantra – “when they go low, we go high.” That
high-toned approach to politics didn’t work in 2016 and is
unlikely to be employed in 2020 by the Democratic Party’s
standard bearers.
Actor Bette Davis probably was more on point when she warned
her guests in the 1950 movie, All About Eve: “Fasten
your seatbelts; it’s going to be a bumpy ride.” |
