Who is Kamala Harris?
Thanks to public pressure President Biden did what he should have done over a year ago and ended his re-election bid. Now nobody knows for certain what the Democratic ticket is going to be but it is likely that Vice-President Kamala Harris will be at the top of the ticket right now.
Harris was born in Oakland California in 1964, her mother is Shyamala Gopalan a successful biomedical scientist (she passed away in 2009) and her father is economics professor Donald J. Harris. Kamala Harris graduated from high school in 1981 and attended Vanier College, later transferring to HBCU Howard University. At Howard she interned for California Senator Alan Cranston. Harris received a BA in political science and economics from Howard in 1986. After Howard she went to law school and in 1989 received a JD from the Hastings College of Law and passed the bar in 1990.
Very quickly Harris was hired as a Deputy District Attorney for Alameda County California. It was during these years that she began a relationship with then State Assemblyman Willie Brown. Brown (who was later investigated by the FBI for corruption), appointed Kamala to the State Uninsurance Appeals Board. (This is where the rumor that “Kamala slept her way to the top” originates.) In 1998, Harris became an assistant District Attorney and later worked at San Francisco City Hall.
Part 1 District Attorney & Attorney General
In 2002, Harris truly began her political career running for District Attorney of San Francisco. In the general election Harris ran against incumbent DA Terrence Hallinan. Harris ran a unique campaign presenting herself as firm but fair and criticizing Hallinan’s performance particularly his comparatively low conviction rate and what she saw as him not doing enough about gun violence. Harris won the election and took office on January 8th 2004.
Kamala’s time as DA is most remembered for the almost two thousand convictions for marijuana offenses. While this sounds bad (and in many ways is) there is room for nuance. While Harris did prosecute more marijuana cases than her predecessor she actually sentenced fewer to state prison, and “Prosecutions for low-level marijuana offenses were rare under Harris, and her office had a policy of not pursuing jail time for marijuana possession offenses”. Kamala also opposed a marijuana legalization ballot initiative.
Harris served for 2 terms as District Attorney and in 2010 ran for Attorney General for California. Kamala ran against Republican District Attorney Steve Cooley, it was a very close election but Kamala ended up winning by about 80,000 votes. (less than 1 percent). As Attorney General, Harris had several accomplishments which I am happy to list below.
Harris launched a division to research and implement “anti-crime and rehabilitation programs”. This eventually took the form of Back on Track LA, which took 90 male “triple nons” (non-violent, non serious, and non sexual offenders). I cannot find much info about how successful this program was. (if I do I will update this article)
Harris served as Attorney General during the proposition 8 era of California politics. During her campaign she pledged not to enforce proposition 8 arguing that it is “unconstitutional”(she was right) and to her credit she kept this promise and took legal action to defend marriage equality. This is a pretty substantial moment and for some reason is rarely referenced by Harris or her campaign.
Harris also negotiated an agreement with major tech companies including Apple, Amazon, Google, and several others) which mandated “that apps sold in digital app stores and running on their mobile operating systems have clear privacy policies”. While this didn’t really change much (seeing as users are likely to bypass the mandated warning screen.) It was a win for transparency and shows that Harris has at least some ability to get concessions from big tech companies.
Harris’s stint as attorney general is not without controversy though. She has received significant criticism on her criminal justice record, notably for years she was criticized for not allowing a DNA test to be conducted in the Kevin Cooper case, eventually a DNA test was done which did not exonerate him.
Perhaps the most controversial move Harris made as DA, was to enforce a truancy law which could fine parents of truant children up to two thousand dollars and even give them jail time if their children did not attend school regularly. California classifies students that are late to class by 30 minutes or more three times during a school year as truant. I did find records of some parents serving jail time such as Lorraine Cuevas who was sentenced to 180 days in jail.
Part 2: The Senator
In 2015, longtime US senator Barbara Boxer announced she would be retiring from her seat after over 20 years. Harris immediately announced a run for that seat. California elections are unique and always result in two candidates in the general. This meant that Kamala’s only opponent was US representative Loretta Sanchez (a fellow Democrat). Harris won by over 3 million votes.
Harris only served as a senator for about 4 years (less than a full term) before becoming Vice President. In that time she sponsored 164 bills. In terms of senate activity here is a selection of votes she made that I think best represents her time as a legislator (this is far from exhaustive, just a few of the more relevant votes she has taken).
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As a senator Harris supported the following:
HR 1957 — Great American Outdoors Act
HR 6172 — USA FREEDOM Reauthorization Act of 2020 (This is/was a horrific bill that was supported by a majority of both Democrats and Republicans (only 16 senators voted against it). The bill reauthorized the Patriot Act, and the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 two bills that more than any other pushed America closer to a fascist state, a just media would make Kamala and all the other senators that supported this act explain their votes.
S J Res 68 — A joint resolution to direct the removal of United States Armed Forces from hostilities against the Islamic Republic of Iran that have not been authorized by Congress — National Key Vote (This was another good vote for Kamala. This resolution would have ended the use of US Armed forces in Iran (except for those actions that were approved by congress) sadly it was vetoed by then President Trump and the veto was not able to be overturned. )
HR 748 — Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act Harris voted against the first two versions of the CARES Act but did vote yes on the 3rd go around. For those that don’t remember the CARES Act was the big COVID assistance bill. This bill gave several tax credits, the $1200 stimulus checks, the pausing of student loan payments, and many other measures. This was a somewhat bipartisan bill and at the time was quite popular. Its legacy is a bit more controversial with progressives arguing that it didn’t go far enough in helping working class Americans and instead largely benefitted corporations and conservatives arguing that it contributed to the inflation we are currently facing.
H Res 755 — Impeaching Donald John Trump, President of the United States, for high crimes and misdemeanors (This was the famous Trump impeachment vote. Every democratic senator voted for it and everybody GOP senator voted against it)
HR 2810 — National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018 (this was the defense budget for fiscal year 2018. It gave almost 18 billion dollars to the US Army, over 30 billion to the Marines and Navy, and over 42 billion to the US Air Force). These budgets really should not appeal to anybody but Kamala was one of 89 senators to approve the budget.
As a senator she voted against the following:
PN 2252 — Nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court of the United States — National Key Vote (Barrett would be approved and is currently serving on the supreme court, Harris voted against all 3 of President Trump’s Supreme Court appointments)
S 4049 — National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 (Harris was one of 14 senators to vote against this, a good showing for her).
S 3275 — Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act (This was a particularly rough anti-abortion bill that prohibited abortions if “ if the probable post-fertilization age is 20 weeks or greater”. It would also fine or imprison doctors that did perform an abortion in the above circumstance.) Harris has always run as a pro-choice candidate so this is a good vote for her.)
HR 5430 — United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement Implementation Act This was the bill that ended NAFTA and replaced it with United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (Kamala was one of only 9 senators to vote against it)
She did not vote on the following:
HR 8337 — Continuing Appropriations Act, 2021 and Other Extensions Act (this bill passed overwhelmingly if it was in danger of not passing I assume Harris would have come to vote. Only 10 GOP senators voted against it)
S 178 — Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act of 2019 This is a weird bill that was largely voted on based on party lines. This bill aimed to change relations between the US and China largely based on the alleged internment of ethnic Uyghurs. The bill requires “the president to submit to the appropriate congressional committees a list of senior Chinese government officials whom the president determines are responsible for or have knowingly engaged in serious human rights abuses against Turkic Muslims in China” and requires the president to impose sanctions based on “Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act”. It’s odd that this bill was so partisan, if Harris had voted it is likely she would have voted against as all other Democrats did. Kamala did co-sponsor her own Uyghur bill “S 3744 — Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act of 2020.
To progressives, this record might show that Harris is more left leaning than you may have known or remembered. In fact in 2019 Harris was actually ranked GovTrack as most politically left compared to All Senators this includes Senators like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Kamala was also an early supporter of the green new deal which was abandoned by establishment progressive pretty quickly after Biden took office. My personal favorite act by senator Harris was her and Rand Paul’s attempt to reform bail practices.
Part 3: The Candidate
Harris announced her presidential run in January 2019. Harris was seen as a strong contender at the start, raising 1.5 million dollars in the first day of her campaign. Her momentum continued into the first primary debate where she went after Biden for his opposition to busing. Immediately Harris began merchandising on this debate which left many to question Kamala’s authenticity (a consistent issue for her). Harris did not fare as well in the second debate where she was correctly attacked by Representative Tulsi Gabbard over her record as prosecutor. After this debate Kamala’s funding slowed and her support eroded, she dropped out before the end of the year in December, before a single primary was held (Despite being the 2024 Democratic Presidential nominee, Harris has never won a single delegate in a primary contest). In August of 2020 Biden chose Harris as his running mate.
Part 4: The Vice-President & Beyond
I could write a lot of fluff about Kamala’s term as Vice-President (such as her work on trade, and her time “border czar” (in truth she did very little both negative or positive in regards to the border and she only visited the border on 1 occasion) but the truth is like most Vice Presidents (except for Walter Mondale and Dick Cheney) Harris did very little. While Harris did cast the most tie-breaking votes of any Vice-President virtually everything else she has done has been of little consequence. There is little evidence that Kamala has had as much to do with policy as Vice-President Mondale or Cheney. Harris has been more like then Vice-President Lyndon Johnson, given leadership on pet issues where she acts as little more than a cheerleader. I don’t necessarily hold this against her but at the same time she really doesn’t have much to run for president based on her Vice-Presidency.
Everybody knows how Harris became the nominee and I won’t delve into that (if you have a burning curiosity you can read my article about it from a couple of weeks ago. Harris has an uphill battle to face, She has less than 100 days left until election day, and has never really won a competitive election, however compared to the Biden campaign, Harris is much more able to appear in public and speak, many of her former critics are just happy she isn’t Biden, and while it is unlikely, she has the chance to actually institute change on things like abortion (which Biden has done a poor job defending, and the genocide in Gaza which she has not fully articulated a position on.
Kamala has started her campaign well, and polling has shown a huge change in the race (in the Democrats favor), it seems Democrats and even some independents are not just willing to vote for Harris but are excited to do so. While Harris has been more outfront than Biden (not a particularly impressive feat) she has yet to do a long form interview, has not posted a platform, and instead of campaigning directly on policy the DNC has pushed talking points (mainly the Republicans are “weird” talking point) which for now seems to be working but if every Democrat continues to push “weird” into every interview, rally, and speech eventually it might lose authenticity. What Kamala has done is spend a lot of time on Zoom. There have been Zoom meetings for every demographic you can think of and just a few hours ago today Kamala received her Democratic nomination not at or even during a convention but during a zoom meeting. It might keep the fear of dissent at the convention at bay but with a candidate that is receiving the nomination without winning a single primary one wonders how democratic the process is.
