Devi Harris (/ˈkɑːmələ/ KAH-mə-lə;[1] born October 20, 1964)[2] is an American politician and
lawyer serving as the junior United States senator from California since 2017. A member of
the Democratic
Party, Harris is the presumptive Democratic vice presidential nominee for the 2020
election, running alongside former vice president Joe Biden.
Born in Oakland, California to
an Indian mother and a Jamaican father, Harris is a graduate of Howard University and University of California, Hastings College of the Law.
Harris began her career in the Alameda County District Attorney's Office
before being recruited to the San
Francisco District Attorney's Office and later the City
Attorney of San Francisco's office. In 2003, she was elected the
27th district attorney of
San Francisco, serving until 2011. Harris was narrowly elected Attorney
General of California in 2010, and was re-elected
in 2014. Harris faced criticism from reformers for tough-on-crime
policies she pursued while she was California's attorney
general.
In November 2016, she
defeated Loretta Sanchez in
the 2016 Senate electionto succeed outgoing
senator Barbara Boxer,
becoming California's third female
senator and the first South Asian–American to
serve in the United States Senate.[3][4] As a senator, she has supported
healthcare reform, federal descheduling of cannabis, a path to
citizenship for undocumented immigrants, the DREAM Act, a ban on assault weapons, and progressive tax reform. She gained a national
profile for her pointed questioning of Trump administrationofficials
during Senate hearings, including U.S.
attorneys general Jeff Sessionsand William Barr, and Associate Justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh.[5]
Harris ran for the Democratic
nomination for President of
the United States in the 2020
election, briefly becoming a frontrunner before ending her campaign
on December 3, 2019, citing a lack of funds to continue.[6] She was announced as Joe
Biden's running mate for the 2020
United States presidential election on August 11, 2020,
becoming the third female U.S. vice presidential nominee of a major party,
after Geraldine Ferraro and Sarah Palin.
Early life and education
Kamala Devi Harris was
born on October 20, 1964, in Oakland, California.[2] Her mother, Shyamala Gopalan,
was a breast-cancer scientist who had emigrated from Tamil Nadu, India in
1960 to pursue a doctorate in endocrinology at UC
Berkeley.[7]Her father, Donald Harris,
is a Stanford University emeritus
professor of economics, who emigrated from British Jamaica in 1961 for graduate
study in economics at UC Berkeley.[8][9] In a 2018 article written
in Jamaica Global, Donald Harris claimed to be a descendant of
slave owner Hamilton Brown.[10] Biracial of Tamil and Jamaican descent, Kamala Harris
identifies simply as "American".[11][12]
Harris was raised
in Berkeley, California,
with her younger sister, Maya Harris.[13][14] She grew up going to both a black Baptist
church and a Hindu temple, while she and her sister visited
their mother's family in Madras (now Chennai), India, on occasion.[15] As a result, Harris writes in
her memoir that she understands small amounts of Tamil.[11] Her mother named her “Kamala
Devi” for religious reasons, as both words are derived from Hindu mythology.[16] “Kamala” is Sanskrit for “lotus” and an alternative name for the
Goddess Lakshmi who is often depicted with the
aforementioned flower; whereas “Devi” is Sanskrit for
“goddess” and the name of the female deity who protects villages.[16]
Harris began kindergarten in the second year of
Berkeley's school desegregation busing program,
which adopted busing to bring racial balance to the city's public schools; a
bus drove her to a school which, two years prior, had been 95% white.[17]Her parents divorced when she was
seven; she has said that when she and her sister visited their father in Palo Alto on
weekends, neighbors' kids were not allowed to play with them because they were
black.[15] When she was 12, Harris and
her sister moved with their mother to Montreal, Canada, where their mother had
accepted a research position at Jewish General
Hospital and teaching at McGill University.[18] She was a popular student
at Westmount High School in Westmount, Quebec, graduating in 1981.[19]
At Howard University in Washington, D.C.,
she double-majored in political science and economics (B.A. 1986), interned as a
mailroom clerk for California senator Alan Cranston, chaired the economics society,
led the debate team, demonstrated against apartheid, and joined Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.[20][21] Harris returned to California,
where in 1989 she earned her Juris Doctor from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law in
San Francisco.[22] She passed the bar examination
and gained admission to the State Bar of California on June 14, 1990.[23]
Early career (1990–2004)
Main
article: Electoral
history of Kamala Harris
In 1990, Harris was hired
as a deputy district attorney in Alameda County,
California, where she was noted as being "an able prosecutor on
the way up".[24] In 1994, California Assembly
speaker Willie Brown (with
whom Harris was in a relationship)[24]appointed Harris to the state
Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board and later the California Medical
Assistance Commission. Harris took a leave of absence from her prosecutor job
to serve in the positions.[24][25]
In February 1998, San
Francisco district attorney Terence Hallinan recruited Harris as an
assistant district attorney.[26]There, she became the chief of the
Career Criminal Division, supervising five other attorneys, where she
prosecuted homicide, burglary, robbery, and sexual assault cases –
particularly Three-Strikes cases.
Harris reportedly clashed with Hallinan's assistant, Darrell Salomon[27] over Proposition
21, which would have granted prosecutors the option of trying juvenile defendants in Superior Court
rather than juvenile courts.[28] Harris campaigned against the
measure and Salomon opposed directing media inquiries about Proposition 21 to
Harris and reassigned her, a de facto demotion. Harris filed a
complaint against Salomon and quit.[citation needed]
In August 2000, Harris
took a new job at San Francisco City
Hall, working for City Attorney Louise Renne.[29] Harris ran the Family and
Children's Services Division representing child abuse and neglect cases. Renne said of Harris:
"She will make the best DA this city has seen in years."[30]
2003
campaign for District Attorney
Harris in 2004 with
California Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, who later twice became Speaker
of the U.S. House of Representatives.
In 2002, she began
"methodically gathering support" to run against Hallinan, calling
Mark Buell, the stepfather of her friend Summer Tompkins Walker, and telling him of her
intentions.[31] Impressed, Buell offered to be
her finance chair and
advised she would need to raise more than $150,000 to defeat an incumbent, the
highest amount ever raised for the position. He and Harris organized a finance
committee composed mostly of Harris's friends, including Vanessa Getty and Susan
Swig.[31]
Harris sought to run a
campaign that disrupted negative stereotypes
of black womenand set up her campaign office in Bayview,
the "most isolated neighborhood" in San Francisco.[31] Running against Hallinan, and
defense attorney, Bill Fazio, Harris was the least known candidate, but noted
to be "whip-smart, hard-working, and well-credentialed".[32] Harris's campaign successfully
lobbied the 24-member Central
Committee – including U.S. senator Dianne Feinstein and
then-House majority leader Nancy Pelosi – of the statewide
Democratic party to withhold its influential endorsement from an incumbent.[30]Hallinan and Fazio sought to link Harris to Willie Brown, who was
campaigning and fundraising for Harris, through a PAC.[30]Harris denied financially
benefitting from Brown, and countered that statements used to tie her to Brown
were misogynistic.[30]
In October 2003,
the San
Francisco Ethics Commission found that Harris unintentionally[33] violated the city's campaign
finance law by exceeding the voluntary $211,000 spending limit. In what was
thought to be the largest fine to date under that law, the Ethics Commission
levied up to $34,000 in penalties and corrective measures, and ordered her to
buy newspaper ads informing voters about not abiding by the spending cap.
Harris accepted full blame, saying, "Leadership isn't about being perfect.
Leadership means taking responsibility."[33] Harris spent nearly $625,000
while Hallinan spent just over $285,000; both advanced to the general
election runoff with
33% and 37% of the vote, respectively.[34]
Hallinan was running for
re-election amidst the backdrop of the Fajitagate scandal, in which three
off-duty police officers got into a fight with residents over a bag of fajitas.
Hallinan alleged that Prentice E. Sanders,
the city's first black chief of police, and other officers were involved in a
cover-up of the criminal acts of the three off-duty officers, indicting all of
them for obstruction of
justice in February 2003. Sanders resigned, but Hallinan was
forced to drop the charges against Sanders less than a month later when he was
unable to prove evidence of a conspiracy.[35] Sanders pursued legal action
and was declared factually innocent, damaging Hallinan's credibility.[36]
In the runoff, Harris
pledged never to seek the death penalty and to prosecute three-strike offenders only in cases of
violent felonies.[37] Harris ran a
"forceful" campaign, assisted by former mayor Willie Brown,
Senator Dianne Feinstein,
writer and cartoonist Aaron McGruder, and comedians Eddie Griffin and Chris Rock.[38][39] Harris differentiated herself
from Hallinan by attacking his performance.[40] She argued that she left his
office because it was technologically inept and "dysfunctional",
emphasizing his "abysmal" 52% conviction rate for serious crimes despite an 83% average
conviction rate statewide.[41] She accused Hallinan of
mismanaging his office by promoting people in his office without merit and covering up allegations of
prosecutorial misconduct.[42] Harris further charged that
his office wasn't doing enough to stem the city's gun violence, particularly in
poor neighborhoods like the Bayview and
the Tenderloin,
and attacked his willingness to accept plea
bargainsin cases of domestic violence: "It is not progressive
to be soft on crime."[43][44]
Harris won with 56-44
percent of the vote, becoming California's first American district attorney of
color.
District Attorney of San Francisco
(2004–2011)
Kamala Harris as District
Attorney of San Francisco
Public
safety
Felony
conviction rate
Harris inherited a 50%
felony conviction rate from Hallinan when she took over in 2004. During her
tenure, the felony conviction rate rose to 53% in 2005, to 66% in 2006, the
highest in a decade.[45] The felony conviction rate
continued to rise, reaching 76% in 2009.[46] Convictions of drug dealers
increased from 56% in 2003, to 74% in 2006.[46]
Harris was re-elected in
2007 when she ran unopposed.[47]
Non-violent
crimes
In summer 2005, Harris
created a unit to tackle environmental crimes.[48] Harris filed charges against
the Alameda Publishing Corporation, and two men hired by the company's previous
owner, for dumping hazardous printing ink in San Francisco's Bayview neighborhood.
Fifty-gallon buckets of hazardous ink were left overturned and leaking. The
corporation and its publishers were charged with unlawful disposal and
transportation of hazardous waste and with depositing of hazardous substances
on a road.[49][50] The two men subsequently
pleaded guilty, and were sentenced to probation.[50]
In 2007, Harris and city
attorney Dennis Herrera investigated
San Francisco supervisor Ed Jew for violating
residency requirements necessary to hold his supervisor position;[51] Harris charged Jew with nine
felonies, alleging that he lied under oath and falsified documents to make it
appear that he resided in a Sunset District home, necessary so he
could run for the District 4 seat for supervisor.[52] Jew pleaded guilty in October
2008 to unrelated federal corruption charges (mail fraud, soliciting a bribe,
and extortion)[52] and pleaded guilty the
following month in state court charge of perjury for lying about his address on
nomination forms, as part of a plea agreement in which the other state charges
were dropped and Jew agreed to never again hold elected office in California.[53] Harris described the case as
"about protecting the integrity of our political process, which is part of
the core of our democracy."[53] For his federal offenses, Jew
was sentenced to 64 months in federal prison and a $10,000 fine;[54] for the state perjury
conviction, Jew was sentenced to one year in county jail, three years'
probation, and about $2,000 in fines.[55]
Under Harris, the D.A.'s
office obtained more than 1,900 convictions for marijuana offenses, including persons
simultaneously convicted of marijuana offenses and more serious crimes.[56] The rate at which Harris's
office prosecuted marijuana crimes was higher than the rate under her
predecessor, but the number of defendants sentenced to state prison for such
offenses was substantially lower as compared to her predecessor.[56] 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.[56] Harris's successor as
D.A., George Gascón,
expunged all San Francisco marijuana offenses going back to 1975.[56]
Violent
crimes
In the early 2000s,
the City and
County of San Francisco murder rate per capita drastically
outpaced the national average. Within the first six months of taking office,
Harris cleared 27 of 74 backlogged homicide cases by settling 14 by plea bargainand taking 11 to trial; with 9
convictions and 2 hung juries, she attained an 81% success rate. She took 49
violent crime cases to trial and secured 36 convictions, for an 84% success
rate.[57] From 2004 to 2006, Harris
achieved an 87% conviction rate for homicides and a 90% conviction rate for all
felony gun violations.[58]
Harris also pushed for
higher bail for criminal defendants involved
in gun-related crimes, arguing that historically low bailencouraged
outsiders to commit crimes in San Francisco. SFPD
officers credited Harris with tightening loopholes in bail and drug programs that
defendants had used in the past.[59] In addition to creating a gun
crime unit, Harris opposed releasing defendants on their own recognizance if
they were arrested on gun crimes, sought minimum 90-day sentences for
possession of concealed or loaded weapons, and charged all assault weapons
possession cases as felonies, adding that she would seek prison terms for
criminals who possessed or used assault weapons and would seek maximum
penalties on gun-related crimes:[60]
If you carry an illegal
gun in the city of San Francisco and your case is brought to my office, you are
going to spend time in jail. Period.[60]
In April 2005, Harris
pursued the prosecution of Charles Rothenberg, a.k.a. Charley Charles, under
California's three strikes law for
illegal possession of a firearm. Rothenberg became infamous in the 1980s when
he set his 6-year-old son, Dave Dave, on fire amidst a custody dispute
with his ex-wife. Rothenberg previously served 61⁄2 years
in prison for dousing the hotel room in kerosene and setting it ablaze while
his son was asleep. Having been convicted of attempted murder and arson, and
now illegal firearm possession, Rothenberg's act constituted a third
"strike" under state law, triggering a sentence of 25 years to life
in prison.[61]
In May 2005, convicted
sex offender Roberto Gamero broke into a home in the Ingleside district
and sexually assaulted a
nine-year-old. Gamero was arrested on charges of aggravated sexual assault of a
child, child molestation, false imprisonment,
and burglary and later sentenced to more than 17 years in prison.[62][63] That summer, Harris's office
brought three charges of murder with special circumstances against LaShaun
Harris, who was seen throwing her young sons – ages 2, 6, and 16 months – into
the San Francisco Bay.[64] LaShaun Harris, who has paranoid schizophrenia,
pleaded not guilty to three counts, stating that she had heard “the voice of
God” telling her to “sacrifice” her children.[65][64] A jury found her guilty of
second-degree murder, but the judge ruled that she was insane and ordered her
hospitalized for 25 years to life.[66] The conviction was upheld on
appeal.[67]
Kamala Harris created a
special Hate Crimes Unit, focusing on hate crimes against LGBT children
and teens in schools.[68] In early 2006, Gwen Araujo, a 17-year-old American
Latina transgender teenager,
was murdered by two men who
later used the "gay panic defense"
before being convicted of second-degree murder. Harris, alongside Araujo's
mother Sylvia Guerrero, convened a two-day conference of at least 200
prosecutors and law enforcement officials nationwide to discuss strategies to
counter such legal defenses.[69] Harris subsequently supported
A.B. 1160, the Gwen Araujo Justice for Victims Act, advocating that
California's penal code include jury instructions to ignore bias, sympathy,
prejudice, or public opinion in making their decision, also making mandatory
for district attorney's offices in California to educate prosecutors about
panic strategies and how to prevent bias from affecting trial outcomes.[70] In September 2006, California
governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed
A.B. 1160 into law; the law put California on record as declaring it contrary
to public policy for defendants to be acquitted or convicted of a lesser included
offense on the basis of appeals to "societal bias".[70][71]
In August 2007, state
assemblyman Mark Leno introduced
legislation to ban gun shows at the Cow Palace, joined by Harris, Police
Chief Heather Fong, and
Mayor Gavin Newsom. City
leaders contended the shows were directly contributing to the proliferation of
illegal guns and spiking homicide rates in San Francisco: Mayor Newsom earlier
that month signed into law local legislation banning gun shows on city and
county property. Leno alleged that merchants drove through the public housing
developments nearby and illegally sold weapons to residents.[72] While the bill would stall,
local opposition to the shows continued until the Cow Palace Board of Directors
in 2019 voted to approve a statement banning all future gun shows.[73]
Reform
efforts
Recidivism
and re-entry initiative
.jpg)
Back on Track graduation
In 2004, Harris recruited
civil rights activist Lateefah Simon, the youngest woman to ever
receive a MacArthur Fellowship,
to create San Francisco Reentry Division.[74]The flagship program was the Back on
Track initiative, a first-of-its-kind reentry program for first-time nonviolent
offenders age 18–30.[citation needed] Initiative
participants whose crimes were not weapon or gang-related would plead guilty in
exchange for a deferral of sentencing and regular appearances before a judge
over a 12 to 18-month period. The program maintained rigorous graduation
requirements, mandating completion of up to 220 hours of community service,
obtaining a high-school-equivalency
diploma, maintaining steady employment, taking parenting classes,
and passing drug tests. At graduation, the court would dismiss the case and
expunge the graduate's record.[75] Over six years, Harris's
pioneer program produced over 200 graduates, and achieved a low recidivism rate of less than 10 percent,
compared to 53 percent of California's drug offenders that returned to prison
within two years of release. Back on Track earned recognition from the U.S. Department
of Justice as a model for reentry programs. The DOJ found that
the cost to the taxpayers per participant was markedly lower ($5,000) than the
cost of adjudicating a case ($10,000) and housing a low-level offender
($50,000).[76] In 2009, a state law (the Back
on Track Reentry Act, A.B. 750) was enacted, encouraging other California
counties to start similar programs.[77][78] Adopted by the National
District Attorneys Association as a model, prosecutor offices in Baltimore,
Philadelphia, and Atlanta have used Back on Track as a template for their own
programs.[79][80][81]
Death
penalty
Harris made a campaign
pledge never to seek the death penalty as a prosecutor.[37] In April 2004, San
Francisco Police Department officer Isaac Espinoza was shot and
killed in the line of duty. Three days later, Harris announced she would not
seek the death penalty,
angering the San
Francisco Police Officers Association. During Espinoza's funeral
at St. Mary's Cathedral, former mayor of San
Francisco, U.S. senator Dianne Feinstein rose to the pulpit and
called on Harris, seated in the front pew, to seek the death penalty. This
surprise move prompted a standing ovation from the 2,000 uniformed police
officers in attendance. Association president Gary Delagnes echoed her call and
demanded that Espinoza's killer "pay the ultimate price".[82] Despite immense political
pressure from members of California's political establishment, including U.S.
senator Barbara Boxer and
Oakland mayor Jerry Brown, Harris
still refused.[83] Public polling found that 70%
of city voters backed Harris's decision not to seek the death penalty, with
only 22% opposed.[84] Harris's convictions were
tested again in the case of Edwin Ramos, an illegal immigrant and alleged MS-13 gang
member, who was accused of murdering Tony Bologna and his two sons.[85] On September 10, 2009, she
announced she would seek life in prison without the possibility of parole, a
decision Mayor Gavin Newsom backed.[86]
Harris has expressed the
belief that life without possibility of parole is a better, more
cost-effective, punishment.[87] According to the California
Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice, the death penalty costs $137
million per year.[88] If the system were changed to
life without possibility of parole, the annual costs would be approximately $12
million per year.[88]She noted that the resulting surplus
could put 1,000 more police officers into service in San Francisco alone.[87]
Truancy
initiative
In 2006, as part of an
initiative to reduce the city's skyrocketing homicide rate, Harris led a
city-wide effort to combat truancyfor at-risk
elementary school youth in San Francisco.[89] Declaring chronic truancy a
matter of public safety and pointing out that the majority of prison inmates
and homicide victims are dropouts or habitual truants, Harris's office met with
thousands of parents at high-risk schools and sent out letters warning all
families of the legal consequences of truancy at the beginning of the fall
semester, adding she would prosecute the parents of chronically truant
elementary students; penalties included a $2,500 fine and up to a year in jail.[90] The program was controversial
when introduced.
In 2008, Harris issued
citations against six parents whose children missed at least 50 days of school,
the first time San Francisco prosecuted adults for student truancy. San
Francisco's school chief, Carlos Garcia, stated that the path from truancy to
prosecution was lengthy, and that the school district usually spends months
encouraging parents through phone calls, reminder letters, private meetings,
hearings before the School Attendance Review Board, and offers of help from
city agencies and social services; two of the six parents entered no plea but
said they would work with the DA's office and social service agencies to create
"parental responsibility plans" to help them start sending their
children to school regularly.[91] By April 2009, there were
1,330 elementary school students who were habitual or chronic truants, down 23%
from 1,730 in 2008, and down from 2,517 in 2007 and from 2,856 in 2006.[92] Harris's office prosecuted
seven parents in three years, with none jailed.[92]
Attorney General of California (2011–2017)
2010
election
Main
article: 2010
California Attorney General election
Official Attorney General
portrait
On November 12, 2008,
Harris announced her candidacy for California
attorney general. Both of California's senators, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, United Farm Workers cofounder Dolores Huerta, and Mayor of Los Angeles Antonio Villaraigosa all
endorsed her during the primary.[93] In the June 8, 2010 primary,
she was nominated with 33.6% of the vote, defeating Alberto Torrico and Chris Kelly.[94]
In the general election,
she faced Republican Los Angeles County district
attorney Steve Cooley, who
led most of the race. Cooley ran as a nonpartisan, distancing himself from
the Meg
Whitman campaign. However, during a debate on October 5, Cooley
complained about the low salary of the attorney general, stating his intention
to accept a pension and the salary in a practice known as
"double-dipping". Harris turned his remarks into a cutting political
ad that portrayed him as out-of-touch.[95]
On election night,
November 2, 2010, Cooley declared victory, but mail-in and provisional ballots
remained uncounted, with the lead changing four times. On November 24, as the
count advanced, Harris led by more than 55,000 votes. Cooley conceded the next
day.[96]
On January 3, 2011,
Harris made history as the first South Asian American woman
to serve as California attorney general.[97]
2014
election
Main
article: 2014
California Attorney General election
Harris announced her
intention to run for re-election in February 2014 and filed paperwork to run on
February 12.[98] The Sacramento Bee,[99] Los Angeles Daily
News,[100] and Los Angeles Times endorsed her for
reelection.[101]
On November 4, 2014,
Harris was re-elected against Republican Ronald Gold, winning 57.5% of the vote
to 42.5%.[102]
Significant
cases and policies
Anti-truancy
efforts
Visiting Peterson Middle
School in 2010
In 2011, after she was
elected Attorney General, Harris urged criminal penalties for parents of truant
children as she did as District Attorney of San Francisco, allowing the court
to defer judgment if the parent agreed to a mediation period to get their child
back in school. Critics charged that local prosecutors implementing her
directives were overzealous in their enforcement and that Harris's rhetoric
legitimized the notion that parents were responsible for their children's
education.[103]
In 2013, Harris issued a
report titled "In School + On Track", which found that more than
250,000 elementary school students in the state were "chronically
absent", meaning they missed 18 or more days of school. The report found
that the statewide truancy rate for elementary students in the 2012–2013 school
year was nearly 30%, at a cost of nearly $1.4 billion to school districts,
since funding is based on attendance rates.[104] The 2014 edition of In School
+ On Track released updated data and looked at gaps in state infrastructure for
collecting attendance information and disparities in student attendance and
discipline by race, income, and other subgroups such as foster youth. Since the
last report, the statewide truancy rate for elementary school children rose
1.2%.[105]
In 2015, Harris announced
that she would start a new agency called the Bureau of Children's Justice to
address issues such as foster care, the
juvenile justice system, school truancy, and childhood trauma. She appointed
special assistant attorney general Jill Habig to head the agency.[106] Harris released the 2015
draft of In School + On Track, which reported that public awareness of the
issue has increased, while districts have improved their monitoring and
tracking techniques. 82% of districts reported changes to their data
collection, while more than 60% of districts reported they have changed their
alert systems to track a student's attendance history; 95% of all surveyed
school districts reported they have made changes to improve attendance.[107]
Law
enforcement accountability
In 2015, Harris conducted
a 90-day review of implicit bias and
lethal use of force. In April 2015, Harris introduced the first of its kind
"Principled Policing: Procedural Justice and Implicit Bias"
training, designed in conjunction with Stanford Universitypsychologist
and professor Jennifer Eberhardt,
to help law enforcement officers overcome barriers to neutral policing and
rebuild the relationship of trust between law enforcement and the community.
All Command-level staff received the training. The training was part of a
package of reforms introduced within the California Department of Justice,
which also included additional resources deployed to increase the recruitment
and hiring of diverse special agents, an expanded role for the department to
investigate officer-related shooting investigations, and community policing.[108] In 2015, Harris's California
Department of Justice was the first statewide agency in the country to require
all of its police officers to wear body cameras.[109] That same year, Harris
announced a new state law requiring every law enforcement agency in California
to collect, report, and publish expanded statistics on how many people are
shot, seriously injured or killed by peace officers throughout the state.[110]
Later that year, Harris
appealed a judge's order to take over the prosecution of a high-profile mass
murder case and to eject all 250 prosecutors from the Orange
County district attorney's office over allegations of misconduct by Republican D.A. Tony Rackauckas. Rackauckas was alleged to
have illegally employed jailhouse informants and concealed evidence.[111] Harris noted that it was
unnecessary to ban all 250 prosecutors from working on the case, as only a few
had been directly involved, later promising a narrower criminal investigation.
The U.S. Department
of Justice began an investigation into Rackauckas in December
2016, but he was not re-elected.[112]
In 2016, Harris announced
a patterns and practices investigation into purported civil rights violations
and use of excessive force by
the two largest law enforcement agencies in Kern County,
California, the Bakersfield
Police Department and the Kern
County Sheriff's Department.[113] Labeled the "deadliest
police departments in America" in a five-part Guardian expose, a separate
investigation commissioned by the ACLU and
submitted to the California Department of Justice corroborated reports of
police using excessive force.
The ACLU found that officers had engaged in patterns of excessive force –
including shooting and beating to death unarmed individuals – as well as a
practice of filing retaliatory criminal charges against individuals subjected
to excessive force. Further analysis also revealed the highest rate of police
homicides in the country, as well as excessive use of force, resulting in 17
deaths of unarmed civilians from 2009 to 2013 in the form of dog attacks and
tazings.[114]
LGBTQ
rights
Main
article: Hollingsworth v.
Perry
In 2008, California
voters passed Prop 8,
a California
ballot proposition and state constitutional amendment providing
that "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in
California". Legal challenges to Prop 8 were presented by opponents soon
after its approval, and a pair of same-sex couples filed a lawsuit against the
initiative in federal court in the case of Perry v.
Schwarzenegger (later Hollingsworth v.
Perry). In August 2010, Chief Judge Vaughn Walker ruled that the amendment
was unconstitutional under both the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses
of the Fourteenth Amendment,[115] since it purported to re-remove rights
from a disfavored class only, with no rational basis.
The official proponents' justifications for the measure were analyzed in over
fifty pages covering eighty findings of fact. The state government
supported the ruling and refused to defend the law.[116] In their 2010 campaigns,
California attorney general Jerry Brown and Harris both ran on platforms
promising not to defend the proposition.[117] After being elected, Harris
declared her office would not defend the marriage ban, leaving the task to Prop
8's proponents.[118]
On February 7, 2012,
the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2–1
decision, reached the same conclusion as the district court, but on narrower
grounds. The court ruled that it was unconstitutional for California to grant
marriage rights to same-sex couples, only to take them away shortly after. The
ruling was stayed pending appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.[119] The Supreme
Court of the United States granted certiorari that December, ordering the
parties to brief and argue the additional question of whether supporters of
Prop. 8 have standing, i.e., a legal right to be involved in the case, under
Article III, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution.[119] On February 27, 2013, Harris
filed an amicus curiae brief,
arguing that Prop 8 was unconstitutional and that the initiative's sponsors did
not have legal standing to
represent California's interests by defending the law in federal court.[120]
On June 26, 2013, the
Supreme Court, in a 5–4 decision, ruled that the proponents did not possess legal standing in their own right to
defend Prop 8 in federal court,
either to the Supreme Court or (previously) to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Therefore, the
Court vacated the decision of the Ninth Circuit, and remanded the case for
further proceedings. The decision left the district court's 2010 ruling intact.[121] The next day, Harris, in a
speech delivered in downtown Los Angeles, declared that all 58 counties in
California must abide by Judge Walker's 2010 ruling that declared Prop 8
unconstitutional, urging the Ninth Circuit to lift the stay on same-sex marriages
as soon as possible – even before the usual 25-day waiting period until the
Supreme Court clerk notified the lower court of its judgement.[122] On June 28, 2013, the Ninth
Circuit, on remand, dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction and dissolved
their previous stay of Judge Walker's ruling, enabling Governor Jerry Brown to
order same-sex marriages to resume.[123] The same day, Kristin Perry
and Sandra Stier, plaintiffs in the case, married with Harris officiating the
ceremony.[124]
In February 2014,
Michelle-Lael Norsworthy, a transgender woman incarcerated at
California's Mule Creek State
Prison, filed a federal lawsuit based on the state's failure to
provide her with what she argued was medically necessary sex reassignment
surgery (SRS).[125] In April 2015, a federal
judge ordered the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation(CDCR)
to provide Norsworthy with SRS, finding that prison officials had been
"deliberately indifferent to her serious medical need."[126][127] Harris, representing CDCR,
challenged the order in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.[128] She argued that
"Norsworthy has been receiving hormone therapy for her gender dysphoria since 2000 and continues
to receive hormone therapy and other forms of treatment" and that
"there is no evidence that Norsworthy is in serious, immediate physical or
emotional danger."[129] In August 2015, while the
state's appeal was pending, Norsworthy was released on parole, obviating the
state's duty to provide her with inmate medical care[130] and rendering the case moot.[131]
Criminal
justice reform
Launch
of Division of Recidivism Reduction and Re-Entry
In November 2013, Harris
launched the California
Department of Justice's Division of Recidivism Reduction and
Re-Entry in partnership with district attorney offices in San Diego, Los Angeles, and Alameda County.[132] In March 2015, Harris
announced the creation of a pilot program in coordination with the Los Angeles
County Sheriff's Department called "Back on Track LA". Like Back on
Track, first time, nonviolent offenders between 18 and 30 individuals participated
in the pilot program for 24–30 months. Assigned a case manager, participants
received education through a partnership with the Los Angeles
Community College District and job training services.[133]
Sentencing
and prison inmate retention
After the United States
Supreme Court in Brown v. Plata (2011)
declared California's prisons so overcrowded that they inflicted cruel and
unusual punishment, Harris fought federal court supervision,
explaining "I have a client, and I don't get to choose my client."[134] Harris's record on wrongful conviction cases
as attorney general has engendered some criticism from academics and activists.
For example, law professor Lara Bazelon contends Harris "weaponized
technicalities" to uphold lengthy sentences.[135] While she was attorney
general, Harris declined to take any position on criminal sentencing-reform
initiatives Proposition
36 (2012) and Proposition
47 (2014), arguing it would be improper because her office prepares
the ballot booklets. John Van de Kamp, a predecessor as attorney general,
publicly disagreed with the rationale.[134]
In September 2014,
attorneys for Harris argued unsuccessfully in a court filing against the early
release of prisoners, citing the need for inmate firefighting labor. When the
memo provoked headlines, Harris spoke out against the memo. She said that she
was unaware of it, and the attorneys had produced the memo without her
knowledge.[136] Since the 1940s, qualified
California inmates have the option of volunteering to receive comprehensive
training from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection in
exchange for sentence reductions and more comfortable prison accommodations;
prison firefighters receive about $2 a day, and another $1 when battling fires.[137]
Death
penalty
In 2014, Judge Cormac J. Carney vacated the death
sentence of convicted rapist and murderer Ernest Dewayne Jones, declaring capital
punishment in California unconstitutional on the basis of
the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and
unusual punishment because "systemic delay and dysfunction" rendered
the process arbitrary.[138] Harris appealed, contending
Carney failed to abide by the highly-circumscribed habeas corpus procedure set forth in
the binding Supreme Court precedent of Teague v. Lane prohibiting federal
courts from announcing a new rule of constitutional law in habeascases.[139] In an op-ed for The
San Francisco Chronicle, legal and political scholar Mugambi Jouet
criticized the appeal as a defense of the death penalty.[138] The 9th Circuit
Court of Appeals sided with Harris when it unanimously
overturned Carney’s order.[140]
Consumer
protection
Fraud,
waste, and abuse
Harris meets Foreclosure
Victims
In 2011, Harris announced
the creation of the Mortgage Fraud Strike Force in the wake of the 2010
United States foreclosure crisis.[141] That same year, Harris
obtained two of the largest recoveries in the history of California's False
Claims Act – $241 million from Quest Diagnostics and then $323 million
from the SCAN healthcare network – over excess state Medi-Cal and federal Medicare payments.[142][143]
In 2012, Harris leveraged
California's economic clout to obtain better terms in the National
Mortgage Settlement against the nation's five largest mortgage
servicers – JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Ally Bank.[144] The mortgage firms were
accused of illegally foreclosing on homeowners. After dismissing an initial
offer of $2 to $4 billion in relief for Californians, Harris withdrew from
negotiations. The offer eventually was increased to $18.4 billion in debt relief
and $2 billion in other financial assistance for California homeowners.[145][146]
In 2013, Harris worked
with Assembly speaker John Pérez and Senate
president pro tem Darrell Steinberg in 2013 to introduce
the Homeowner Bill of Rights, considered one of the strongest protections
nationwide against aggressive foreclosure tactics.[147] The Homeowner Bill of Rights
banned the practices of "dual-tracking" (processing a modification
and foreclosure at the same time) and robo-signing and provided homeowners with
a single point of contact at their lending institution.[148] Harris achieved multiple
nine-figure settlements for California homeowners under the bill mostly for
robo-signing and dual-track abuses, as well as prosecuting instances in which
loan processors failed to promptly credit mortgage payments, miscalculated
interest rates, and charged borrowers improper fees. Harris secured hundreds of
millions in relief, including $268 million from Ocwen Financial
Corporation, $470 million from HSBC,
and $550 million from SunTrust Banks.[149][150][151]
From 2013 to 2015, Harris
pursued financial recoveries for California's public employee and teacher's
pensions, CalPERSand CalSTRS against various financial giants
for misrepresentation in the sale of mortgage-backed
securities. She secured multiple nine-figure recoveries for the
state pensions, recovering about $193 million from Citigroup, $210 million from S&P,
$300 million from JP Morgan Chase,
and over half a billion from Bank of America.[152][153][154][155]
In 2013, Harris declined
to authorize a civil complaint drafted by state investigators that
accused OneWest Bank, owned
by an investment group headed by future U.S.
treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin (then a private citizen),
of "widespread violation" of California foreclosure laws.[156] During the 2016 elections,
Harris was the only Democratic Senate candidate to receive a donation from
Mnuchin, but voted against his confirmation as treasury secretary in February
2017. In 2019, Harris's campaign stated that the decision not to pursue
prosecution hinged on the state's inability to subpoena OneWest. Her press
secretary said, "There was no question OneWest conducted predatory
lending, and Senator Harris believes they should be punished. Unfortunately,
the law was squarely on their side and they were shielded from state subpoenas
because they're a federal bank."[157]
In 2014, Harris
forced rent-to-own retailer Aaron's, Inc., to refund $28.4 million to
California customers and pay $3.4 million in civil penalties to settle
allegations that it violated California's Karnette Rental-Purchase Act by
charging improper late fees, overcharging customers who paid off contracts
early, and omitting important contract disclosures.[158] Aaron's also violated
California state privacy laws by permitting its franchised stores to install
spyware on rented computers, allowing franchisees to remotely monitor
keystrokes, capture screenshots, and even activate the webcam.[158] According to a report on the
industry by the National
Consumer Law Center, nearly all rent-to-own customers have a
household income of below $50,000, and the vast majority are people of color
who have attained a high school education or less.[159]
In 2015, Harris obtained
a $1.2 billion judgment against for-profit post-secondary education
company Corinthian Colleges for
false advertising and deceptive marketing targeting vulnerable, low-income
students and misrepresenting job placement rates to students, investors, and
accreditation agencies.[160] The Court ordered Corinthian
to pay $820 million in restitution and another $350 million in civil penalties.[161] That same year, Harris also
secured a $60 million settlement with JP Morgan Chase to resolve allegations of
illegal debt collection with
respect to credit card customers, with the bank also agreeing to change
practices that violated California consumer protection laws by collecting
incorrect amounts, selling bad credit card debt, running a debt collection mill
that "robo-signed" court documents without first reviewing the files
as it rushed to obtain judgments and wage garnishments. As part of the
settlement, the bank was required to stop attempting to collect on more than
528,000 customer accounts[162]
In 2015, Harris opened an
investigation of the Office of Ratepayer Advocates, San Diego Gas and Electric,
and Southern California Edison regarding the closure of San
Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. California state investigators
searched the home of California utility regulator Michael Peevey and found hand
written notes that allegedly showed that he had met with an Edison executive in
Poland, where the two had negotiated the terms of the San Onofre settlement,
leaving San Diego taxpayers with a $3.3 billion bill to pay for the closure of
the plant. The investigation was closed amidst Harris's 2016 run for the U.S.
Senate position.[163][164]
Privacy
rights
In February 2012, Harris
announced an agreement with six technology giants and their app developers
– Apple, Amazon, Google, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, and Research in Motion –
to mandate that apps sold in their stores display prominent privacy policies
that inform users of the private information they're sharing and with whom.[165] Facebook later joined the agreement. That
summer, Harris announced the creation of a Privacy Enforcement and Protection
Unit to enforce laws related to cyber privacy, identity theft, and data
breaches. [166] That winter, Harris sent a
letter to 100 mobile-app developers, notifying them of their non-compliance
with state privacy laws and asking them to create privacy policies or face a
$2500 fine each time a non-compliant app is downloaded by a resident of
California.[167]
In 2015, Harris secured
two settlements with Comcast, one totaling $33
million over allegations that posted online the names, phone numbers and
addresses of tens of thousands of customers who had paid for unlisted voice
over internet protocol ("VOIP") phone service and another $26 million
settlement to resolve allegations that it discarded paper records without first
omitting or redacting private customer information.[168][169] Harris also settled
with Houzz over allegations the company
recorded phone calls without notifying customers or employees. Houzz was forced
to pay $175,000, destroy the recorded calls, and hire a chief privacy officer,
the first time such a provision has been included in a settlement with the
California Department of Justice.[170]
Public
safety
Environmental
protection
.jpg)
Attorney General Kamala
Harris tours oil spill cleanup efforts.
Harris prioritized
environmental protection as attorney general, first securing a comprehensive
$44 million settlement to resolve all natural resource damages, penalties, and
response costs associated with the 2007 Cosco Busan oil spill,
where a container ship collided with the Delta Tower of the San
Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge and spilled more than 50,000
gallons of bunker fuel into
the San Francisco Bay in
2011.[171] In the aftermath of the
2015 Refugio oil spill,
which deposited about 140,000 gallons of crude oil off the coast of Santa Barbara,
California, Harris toured the coastline and directed her office's
resources and attorneys to investigate possible criminal violations.[172] Thereafter, operator Plains All
American Pipeline was indicted on 46 criminal charges related
to the spill, with one employee indicted on 3 criminal charges.[173] In 2019, a Santa Barbara jury
returned a verdict finding Plains guilty of failing to properly maintain its
pipeline and another eight misdemeanor charges; they were sentenced to pay over
$3 million in fines and assessments.[174]
From 2015 to 2016, Harris
secured multiple multimillion-dollar settlements with fuel service
companies Chevron, BP, ARCO, Phillips 66, and ConocoPhillips to resolve allegations
they failed to properly monitor the hazardous materials in its underground
storage tanks used to store gasoline for retail sale at hundreds of California
gas stations.[175][176][177] In summer 2016,
automaker Volkswagen AG agreed
to pay up to $14.7 billion to settle a raft of claims related to so-called
"defeat devices"
used to cheat
emissions standards on its diesel cars while actually emitting
up to 40 times the levels of harmful nitrogen oxides allowed under state and federal
law.[178] Harris and the chair of
the California Air
Resources Board, Mary D. Nichols, announced that California
would receive $1.18 billion as well as another $86 million paid to the state of
California in civil penalties.[178]
Law
enforcement improvements
AG Harris touring the
Fresno Regional DNA Laboratory
California's Proposition
69 mandated law enforcement to collect DNA samples from any
adult arrested for a felony and from individuals arrested for certain crimes.
In 2012, Harris announced that the California Department of Justice had
improved its DNA testing capabilities such that samples stored at the state's
crime labs could now be analyzed four times faster, within 30 days.
Accordingly, Harris reported that her Rapid DNA Service Team within the Bureau
of Forensic Services cleared California's entire DNA backlog for the first time
in history, having developed a process that allowed higher volume analysis of
5,400 evidence samples – an increase of 11% from 2010 (4,800) and 24% from 2009
(4,100).[179] In April 2014, Harris's team
was honored with the U.S. Department
of Justice's Award for Professional Innovation in Victim Services.[180] Harris's office would later
be awarded a $1.6 million grant from the Manhattan
District Attorney's initiative to eliminate the backlogs of
untested rape kits.[181]
In 2014, Harris
introduced OpenJustice, a first-in-the-nation criminal justice data initiative
designed with professor Steven Raphael making available statewide
data on arrest rates, deaths in law enforcement custody, arrest-related deaths,
and law enforcement deaths. Subsequent improvements to the platform revealed
data pertaining to clearance rates and racial disparities in the criminal
justice system.[182]
Sex
crimes
In 2011, Harris obtained
a guilty plea and a four-year prison sentence from a stalker who used Facebook and social
engineering techniques to illegally access the private photographs
of women whose social media accounts he hijacked. Harris commented that the
Internet had "opened up a new frontier for crime".[183] Later that year, Harris
created the eCrime Unit within the California Department of Justice, a
20-attorney unit specifically targeting technology crimes.[184] In 2015, several purveyors of
so-called "revenge porn"
sites based in California were arrested, charged with felonies, and sentenced
to lengthy prison terms.[185][186] In the first prosecution of
its kind in the United States, Kevin Bollaert was convicted on 21 counts of
identity theft and six counts of extortion and sentenced to 18 years in prison.[187] Harris brought up these cases
when California Congresswoman Katie Hill was
targeted for similar cyber exploitation by her ex-husband and forced to resign
in late 2019.[188]
In 2016, Harris announced
the arrest of Backpage CEO Carl
Ferrer on felony charges of pimping a minor, pimping, and conspiracy to commit
pimping. The arrest warrant alleged that 99% of Backpage's revenue was directly
attributable to prostitution-related ads, many of which involved victims of sex
trafficking, including children under the age of 18.[189] The pimping charge against
Ferrer was dismissed by the California courts in 2016 on the grounds of Section
230 of the Communications Decency Act, but in 2018 Ferrer pleaded
guilty in California to money laundering and agreed to give
evidence against the former co-owners of Backpage.[190] Ferrer simultaneously pleaded
guilty to charges of money laundering and conspiracy to facilitate prostitution
in Texas state court and Arizona federal court.[190][191] Under pressure, Backpage
announced that it was removing its adult section from all of its U.S. sites.[192] Harris welcomed the move,
saying, "I look forward to them shutting down completely."[193] The investigations continued
after she became a senator, and, in April 2018, Backpage and affiliated sites
were seized by federal law enforcement.[191]
Transnational
criminal organizations
AG Harris announces the
arrest of 101 gang members in Los Banos,
California.
In early 2011, Harris
ordered the arrest of three men with ties to the Tijuana Cartelsuspected of plotting to murder
a family in San Diego, seizing two
assault weapons, more than 1000 rounds of ammunition, and $20,000 in cash.[194] Later that year, Harris
ordered three coordinated law enforcement sweeps in Contra Costa County,
the Central Valley,
and San Bernardino County,
resulting in hundreds of gang leader arrests of Nuestra Familia, Norteños, and the Vagos Motorcycle Club.
Law enforcement officers also seized vast quantities of methamphetamine, cash,
and illegal firearms, including an anti-tank gun and a rocket launcher.[195][196][197]
In summer 2012, Harris
signed an accord with her counterpart, the attorney general
of Mexico, Marisela Morales, to improve coordination of
law enforcement resources targeting transnational gangs engaging in the sale
and trafficking of human beings across the San Ysidro border crossing. The accord
called for closer integration on investigations between offices and sharing
best practices.[198] In September 2012, Harris
announced that Governor Jerry Brown had
signed into law two bills she sponsored to combat human trafficking.[199] In November, Harris presented
a report titled "The State of Human Trafficking in California 2012" at
a symposium attended by U.S. secretary of
labor Hilda Solis and
Attorney General Morales, outlining the growing prevalence of human trafficking
in the state, and highlighting the involvement of transnational gangs in the
practice.[200][201]
In early 2014, Harris
issued a report titled, "Gangs Beyond Borders: California and the Fight
Against Transnational Crime",[202] addressing the prominent role
of drug, weapons, and human trafficking, money laundering, and technology
crimes employed by various drug cartels from Mexico, Armenian Power, 18th Street Gang, and MS-13 and offering recommendations for
state and local law enforcement to combat the criminal activity.[203] Later that year, Harris led a
bipartisan delegation of state attorneys
general to Mexico City to meet with their Mexican
counterparts to discuss joint efforts to address transnational crime,
culminating in the signing of a letter of intent with the Comisión
Nacional Bancaria y de Valores and establishing a bi-national
working group on enforcement of money laundering.[204] Following the visit to Mexico
City, Harris convened a summit focused on the use of technology to fight
transnational organized crime with state and federal officials from the U.S.,
Mexico, and El Salvador,
including Attorney General
of Mexico Jesus Murillo Karam and Attorney
General of El Salvador Luis Martinez.[205]
In 2015, Harris ordered
the arrest of 75 individuals in Merced County and 52 individuals in Tulare County affiliated with the Norteños.[206][207] Harris's office also broke up
a massive identity theft and tax fraud scam perpetrated by Crips in Long Beach, CA. 32 members were arrested on
charges that included 283 counts of criminal conspiracy, 299 counts of identity
theft, and 226 counts of grand theft, amounting to over $3.3 million stolen by
an identity theft scheme and $11 million stolen by a tax fraud scheme.[208]
In 2016, Harris announced
wide-sweeping arrests of over 50 members of the Mexican Mafia, a.k.a. La Eme, seizing more
than 60 firearms, more than $95,000 in cash, and $1.6 million worth of
methamphetamine, cocaine, and marijuana in Riverside County.[209] Later that year, Harris's
office coordinated with federal agents in a raid on dozens of businesses in
the Los Angeles
Fashion District operating as a major money-laundering hub for
narcotics traffickers in Mexico, arresting nine people on charges of money
laundering through a black market peso exchange scheme and seizing nearly $65
million in illegal proceeds.[210]
Obama
appointment speculation
Kamala Harris with U.S.
Attorney General Eric Holder
During Obama's
presidency, Harris was mentioned as a possible nominee for U.S. attorney
general.[211] Harris publicly stated she
was not interested in the job.[212]
After the death of Supreme
Court justice Antonin Scalia in 2016, Harris was
speculated to be his replacement as an associate justice of the Supreme Court.[213]However, as her campaign had
already begun, Harris publicly stated she was only interested in running for
the U.S. Senate and did not wish to be
considered.[214]
U.S. Senate (2017–present)
2016
election
Main
article: 2016 United States Senate election in California
Senate campaign logo,
2016
After 24 years as
California's junior
senator, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) announced her
intention to retire from the United States Senate at
the end of her term in 2016. Harris was the first candidate to declare her
intention to run for Boxer's senate seat. Harris officially announced the
launch of her campaign on January 13, 2015.[215] Harris was a top contender
from the beginning of her campaign: weeks after she announced her campaign, a
survey by Public Policy Polling showed
her leading in a hypothetical match-up against Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa,
41% to 16%.[216] Current and former statewide
elected officials John
Chiang, John Garamendi, Bill Lockyer, Gavin Newsom, and Alex Padilla declined to run.[217][218][219][220]
In February 2016,
the California
Democratic Party voted at its convention to endorse Harris, who
received nearly 80% of the vote.[221] Three months later, Governor
Jerry Brown endorsed her.[222]
In the June 7 primary,
Harris came in first with 40% of the vote and won by pluralities in most
counties.[223] On July 19, President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden endorsed Harris.[224]
Harris faced
congresswoman, and fellow Democrat, Loretta Sanchez, in the general election.[225] It was the first time a
Republican did not appear in a general election for the Senate since California
began directly electing senators in 1914.[226]In the November
2016 election, Harris defeated Sanchez, capturing over 60% of the
vote, carrying all but four counties.[227]Following her victory, she promised
to protect immigrants from the policies of President-elect Donald Trump and announced her intention
to remain Attorney General through the end of 2016.[228][229]
2017
Harris at the Sorek
Desalination Plant in Israel
On January 28, after
Trump signed Executive Order 13769,
barring citizens from several Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S.
for 90 days, she condemned the order and was one of many to describe it as a
"Muslim ban".[230] She called White House
chief of staff John F. Kelly at home to gather
information and push back against the executive order.[231]
In February, Harris spoke
in opposition to Trump's cabinet picks Betsy DeVos, for Secretary of
Education,[232] and Jeff Sessions, for United
States attorney general.[233] In early March, she called on
Sessions to resign, after it was reported that Sessions spoke twice with Russian
ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak.[234]
In April, Harris voted
against the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch to the U.S. Supreme Court.[235] Later that month, Harris took
her first foreign trip to the Middle East, visiting California troops stationed
in Iraq and the Zaatari refugee camp in
Jordan, the largest camp for Syrian refugees.[236]
In June, Harris garnered
media attention for her questioning of Rod Rosenstein, the deputy
attorney general, over the role he played in the May 2017 firing of James Comey, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.[237] The prosecutorial nature of
her questioning caused Senator John McCain, an ex officio member of the Intelligence
Committee, and Senator Richard Burr, the
committee chairman, to interrupt her and request that she be more respectful of
the witness. A week later, she questioned Jeff Sessions, the attorney
general, on the same topic.[238] Sessions stated that her
questioning "makes me nervous". Burr's singling out of Harris sparked
suggestion in the news media that his behavior was sexist, with commentators
arguing that Burr would not treat a male Senate colleague in a similar manner.[239]
In December, Harris
called for the resignation of Senator Al Franken, asserting on Twitter, "Sexual
harassment and misconduct should not be allowed by anyone and should not occur
anywhere."[240] Twelve months later, longtime
aide Larry Wallace resigned from Harris's Senate staff after The
Sacramento Bee uncovered a $400,000 settlement paid by the State of
California for Wallace's sexual harassment of his executive assistant while
both worked in Harris's Attorney General office.[241]
2018
Harris in Selma, 2018
In January, Harris was
appointed to the Senate Judiciary
Committee after the resignation of former senator Al Franken.[242] Later that month, Harris
questioned Homeland
Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen for favoring Norwegian
immigrants over others and claiming to be unaware that Norway is a
predominantly white country.[243][better source needed]
In April and May, Harris
questioned Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg for Facebook's
misuse of users' data and whistleblower Christopher Wylie on reports that Cambridge Analytica misappropriated
the data from 87 million Facebook users to suppress the votes of African
Americans and the extent to which Facebook violated the privacy of its users.[244][245]
In May, Harris heatedly
questioned Secretary Nielsen about the Trump
administration family separation policy, under which children were
separated from their families when the parents were taken into custody for
illegally entering the U.S.[246] In June, after visiting one
of the detention facilities near the border in San Diego,[247] Harris became the first
senator to demand Nielsen's resignation.[248]
In the September and
October, Brett
Kavanaugh Supreme Court confirmation hearings, Harris
questioned Brett Kavanaughabout
a meeting he may have had regarding the Mueller Investigation with a member
of Kasowitz Benson
Torres, the law firm founded by the President's personal
lawyer Marc Kasowitz.
Kavanaugh was unable to answer and repeatedly deflected.[249]Harris also participated in
questioning the FBI director's limited scope of the investigation on Kavanaugh
regarding allegations of sexual assault.[250] She joined her colleagues in
voting against his confirmation.
Harris was a target of
the October 2018 United States mail bombing attempts.[251]
In December, the Senate
passed the Justice
for Victims of Lynching Act (S. 3178), sponsored by Harris.[252] The bill, which died in the
House, would have made lynching a federal hate crime.[253]
2019
_(crop1).jpg)
Harris at SF Pride Parade
2019
On March 22, Harris
called for U.S. attorney general William Barr to testify before Congress about
Special Counsel Robert Mueller's
investigation after he submitted his report on Russian interference in the 2016
election. "We need total transparency here," Harris said.[254] Two days later, Barr released
a 4-page "summary" of the redacted Mueller Report, which was criticized as a
deliberate mischaracterization of its conclusions.[255] Later that month, Harris was
one of twelve Democratic senators to sign a letter led by Mazie Hirono that questioned the decision
of Attorney General Barr to offer "his own conclusion that the President's
conduct did not amount to obstruction of justice" and called for an
investigation into whether Barr's summary of the Mueller Report and his April
18 news conference were misleading.[256]
On May 1, 2019, Barr
testified before the Senate Judiciary
Committee one day after it was reported that Special Counsel Robert Mueller told Barr his 4-page
summary of the Mueller Report failed
to "fully capture the findings".[257] During the hearing, Barr
remained defiant about the misrepresentations in the four-page summary he
released ahead of the full report.[258] First, Harris asked whether
Barr had reviewed the underlying evidence before deciding not to charge the
President with obstruction of justice, to which Barr admitted that neither
he, Rod Rosenstein,
nor anyone in his office reviewed the evidence supporting the report before
making the charging decision.[259] Harris then asked:
"Has the President
or anyone at the White House ever asked or suggested that you open an
investigation of anyone? Yes or no, please, sir."
Barr stuttered, unable to
answer her question. Thereafter, Harris called for Barr to resign, adding that
he refused to answer her questions because he could open himself up to perjury.[260] Later that day, Harris said
Barr's responses to her questions disqualified him from serving as U.S.
attorney general.[261] Two days later, Harris
demanded again that the Department of Justice inspector general Michael E. Horowitz investigate
whether Attorney General Barr acceded to pressure from the White House to
investigate his political enemies.[262] In the aftermath of her
questioning, President Trump reportedly called Harris "nasty".[263]
That December, Harris led
a group of Democratic senators and civil rights organizations in demanding the
removal of White House senior adviser Stephen
Miller after emails published by the Southern
Poverty Law Center revealed frequent contacts with Breitbart website editors concerning
racial and immigration issues.[264]
2020
Harris with Congressional
Black Caucus women
Before the opening of
the impeachment
trial of Donald Trump on January 16, 2020, Harris delivered
remarks on the floor of the Senate, stating her views on the integrity of the
American justice system and the principle that nobody is above the law:
"We now face a
choice: will we insist that we have one system of justice that applies equally
to all? Or will we continue to have two systems of justice, in which some are
above the law? […] The Senate is charged with deciding whether the President of
the United States, with all of his power and supposed wealth, will be held
accountable for his actions – or whether we will finally live up to the
principle: ‘Equal Justice Under Law.’"
Harris later asked Senate
Judiciary chairman Lindsey Graham to
halt all judicial nominations during the impeachment trial, to which Graham
acquiesced.[265][266] Harris voted to convict the
president on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.[267]
Harris has worked on
bipartisan bills with Republican co-sponsors, including a bail reform bill with
Senator Rand Paul,[268] an election security bill
with Senator James Lankford,[269] and a workplace harassment
bill with Senator Lisa Murkowski.[270]Other Republican senators working
with Harris on the Senate Intelligence Committee, including Marco Rubio, Richard Burr, and Roy Blunt, have also praised her as
"well-prepared", "effective", and "a quick
study".[271] Senate Judiciary
chairman Lindsey Graham said
of Harris: "She's hard-nosed. She's smart. She's tough."[272]
Harris voted against
Senator Bernie Sanders'
amendment to reduce the size of the $740 billion National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021.[273]
Committee
assignments
Harris is a member of the
following committees:[274]
·
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
o
Subcommittee on Federal Spending Oversight and Emergency
Management
o
Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs and Federal Management
·
Select Committee on Intelligence
·
Committee on the Judiciary[275]
o
Subcommittee on the Constitution
o
Subcommittee on Oversight, Agency Action, Federal Rights
and Federal Courts
o
Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law
Caucus
memberships
·
Congressional
Black Caucus[276]
·
Congressional
Asian Pacific American Caucus[277]
·
Congressional
Caucus for Women's Issues
2020 presidential campaign
Main
article: Kamala
Harris 2020 presidential campaign
Harris at her formal
campaign launch for the Democratic
nomination for President of the United States in the 2020
election, January 27, 2019
Harris had been
considered a top contender and potential frontrunner for the 2020
Democratic nomination for President.[278] In June 2018, she was quoted
as "not ruling it out".[279] In July 2018, it was
announced that she would publish a memoir, a sign of a possible run.[280] On January 21, 2019, Harris
officially announced her candidacy for President of
the United States in the 2020
United States presidential election.[281] In the first 24 hours after
her candidacy announcement, she tied a record set by Bernie Sanders in 2016 for the most
donations raised in the day following an announcement.[282] Over 20,000 people attended
her formal campaign launch event in her hometown of Oakland, California, on
January 27, according to a police estimate.[283]
During the first
Democratic presidential debate in June 2019, Harris
scolded former vice president Joe Biden for "hurtful" remarks
he made, speaking fondly of Senators who opposed integration efforts in the
1970s and working with them to oppose mandatory school bussing.[284] Harris's support rose by
between 6 and 9 points in polls following that debate.[285] In the second debate in
August, Harris was confronted by Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbardand Vice President Joe Biden over her record as Attorney
General.[286] San Jose Mercury News
assessed that some of Gabbard's and Biden's accusations were on point, while
others did not stand up to scrutiny. In the immediate aftermath, Harris fell in
the polls following that debate.[287][288] Over the next few months her
poll numbers fell to the low single digits[289]At a time when liberals were
increasingly concerned about the excesses of the criminal justice system,
Harris faced criticism from reformers for tough-on-crime policies she pursued
while she was California's attorney general. For example, in 2014, she decided
to defend California's death penalty in court.[290]
On December 3, 2019,
Harris withdrew from seeking the 2020 Democratic nomination, citing a shortage
of funds.[291] In March 2020, Harris
endorsed Joe
Biden for president.[292]
2020 vice presidential campaign
Harris with Mayor Eric Garcetti at African
Methodist Episcopal Church in Los Angeles in 2020
Main
articles: Joe
Biden 2020 presidential campaign and 2020 Democratic Party vice presidential candidate
selection
After Biden and Harris launched
their campaigns, in May 2019, senior members of the Congressional
Black Caucus said that a Biden-Harris ticket would be an ideal
combination to defeat Donald Trump and Mike Pence.[293] In late February, Biden won a
landslide victory in the 2020
South Carolina Democratic primary with the endorsement of House
Whip Jim Clyburn, with
more victories on Super Tuesday. In
early March, Clyburn suggested Biden choose a black woman as a running mate,
noting that "African American women needed to be rewarded for their
loyalty".[294] In March, Biden committed to
choosing a woman for his running mate.[295]
On April 17, 2020, Harris
responded to media speculation and said that she "would be honored"
to be Biden's running mate.[296] In late May, in relation to
the death of George
Floyd in an incident of police brutality and ensuing protests and
demonstrations, Biden faced renewed calls to select a black woman to
be his running mate, highlighting the law enforcement credentials of Harris
and Val Demings.[297]
On June 12, The New York Times reported
that Harris was emerging as the frontrunner to be Biden's running mate.[298] On June 26, CNN reported
that more than a dozen people close to the Biden search process considered
Harris one of Biden's top four contenders, along with Elizabeth Warren, Val Demings, and Keisha Lance Bottoms.[299]
Biden announced that he
had chosen Harris on August 11, 2020. She is the first South Asian woman to be
picked as the vice presidential running mate by the presumptive presidential
nominee for a major party ticket; in addition, she is the first Democratic
presumptive running mate from a state west of the Rocky Mountains (Barack Obama was born
in Hawaii, but built his political career
in Illinois prior to running for president
in 2008).
Political positions
Main
article: Political
positions of Kamala Harris
Electoral history
Main
article: Electoral
history of Kamala Harris
Awards and honors
Harris at Howard University in 2017
In 2005, National Black
Prosecutors Association awarded Harris the Thurgood Marshall Award.
That year, she was featured along 19 other woman in a Newsweekreport profiling "20 of America's
Most Powerful Women".[300] In 2006, Harris was elected
to the National District Attorneys Association's Board of Directors as vice
president and appointed to co-chair its Corrections and Re-Entry Committee. She
was also selected to co-chair the California District Attorneys Association's
sex crimes committee.[301] Harris was also selected to
serve as a Rodel Fellow with the Aspen Institute along
with 24 other elected officials.[302] That same year, Howard University awarded Harris its
Outstanding Alumni Award for "extraordinary work in the fields of law and
public service".[303] In 2007, Ebony named her one of the "100 Most
Influential Black Americans".[303] In 2008, she was named an
Attorney of the Year by California Lawyer magazine.[304] A New York Times article
published later that year also identified her as a woman with potential to
become President of the United States, highlighting her reputation as a
"tough fighter".[305]
In 2010, California's
largest legal newspaper The Daily
Journal designated Harris as a top 100 lawyer and top 75
women litigators in the state.[306] In 2013, Time named Harris as one of the
"100 Most Influential People in the World".[307] In 2016, the 20/20 Bipartisan
Justice Center awarded Harris the Bipartisan Justice Award along with
Senator Tim Scott.[308] In 2018, Harris was named the
2018 recipient of the ECOS Environmental Award for her leadership in
environmental protection.[309]
Honorary degrees
·
University
of Southern California, Doctor of Laws (LL.D) (May 15, 2015)[310][311][312]
·
Howard University, Doctor of Humane
Letters (DHL) (May 13, 2017)[313] [314]
Harris gave the
commencement address at the Howard ceremony.[315]
Personal life
Harris is married to
attorney Douglas Emhoff,
who was at one time partner-in-charge at Venable LLP's Los Angeles office.[316] They married on August 22,
2014, in Santa Barbara,
California.[317] The couple do not have
children together, but Harris is stepmother, "Momala", to Emhoff's
two children from his previous marriage.[318] As of August 2019, Harris and
her husband had an estimated net worth of $5.8 million.[319]
Harris's sister Maya Harris is an MSNBC political
analyst, her brother-in-law Tony West is general counsel of Uber and
a former United
States Department of Justice senior official,[320] and her niece Meena Harris is the founder of the
Phenomenal Women Action Campaign.
Publications
Harris has written two
non-fiction books and one children's book.[321][322] She also wrote the entry
for Christine Blasey Fordwhen
Ford was named one of the Time 100 people in
2019.[323]
·
The Truths We Hold: An American Journey.
Diversified Publishing. 2019. ISBN 978-1984886224.
·
Superheroes Are Everywhere. Penguin Young Readers Group. 2019. ISBN 978-1984837493.
·
Smart on Crime: A Career Prosecutor's Plan to Make Us
Safer. Chronicle Books.
2009. ISBN 978-0811865289.
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