Kamala Harris

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“”My mother had many sayings. She would say, 'Kamala, you may be the first to do many things; make sure you’re not the last.' Which is why [in my victory speech], I said, 'I will be the first, but I will not be the last.' And that’s about legacy. That’s about creating a pathway. That’s about leaving the door more open than it was when you walked in.
—Harris in 2020[1]

Kamala Harris (1964–) (pronounced COMMA-la,[2] not COMMI-la[note 1]) is an American politician, attorney and member of the Democratic Party from California. She is the 49th Vice President of the United States,[3] and is the first woman and second person of color to hold the office (after Charles Curtis, a member of the Kaw Nation who served as Herbert Hoover's veep[4]).

On 21 July, 2024, Biden withdrew from the race and endorsed Harris, who immediately launched her own presidential campaign, positioning herself as the Democrats' presumptive nominee against Donald Trump. She is the second woman (after Hillary Clinton) to become the presumptive nominee of a major U.S. political party as well as the first African-American woman and Asian-American citizen to do so. Her rallying cry for her campaign is "We are not going back." [5] Harris was running on expanding the earned income tax credit (which is kind of like Milton Friedman's NIT except more regressive), up to $25,000 in mortgage down-payment subsidies (ie abandoning New Deal housing policy), lowering prescription costs for seniors, supporting American AI companies, and raising the minimum wage.[6] She lost this election to Trump, with around 20 million less Democrats showing up to vote for Harris than voted for Joe Biden 4 years prior.

Prior to her national political career, Harris graduated from the University of California, Hastings, receiving a Juris Doctor.[7] She served as a Senator from 2017 to 2021. She has also served as the Attorney General of California and as the District Attorney of San Francisco. A Baptist,[8] she announced in January 2019 a plan to run for President in 2020;[9] She withdrew her candidacy in December 2019, then was chosen as Joe Biden's running mate in 2020.

Unfortunately, this accomplished distinction comes with very ugly racist and sexist attacks on her, some from users, others from bot accounts.[10] For instance, Harris is often referred to as "the hoe" or "camel toe" to rhyme with "Joe" (Joe Biden) (thus creepily sexualizing her and erasing her name to reduce her to a sexualized component of Biden) as part of exceptionally ugly bumper stickers during her campaign on the Joe Biden ticket. As with Obama, similar attacks on her viability to be vice president were levied on her, spread by Trump,[11] particularly stemming from a egregious Newsweek piece by John Eastman[12] that was so robustly criticized and blamed for the birther conspiracies for Harris that it prompted them to respond with an apology and an attempt at clarification. [13]

Early Life

Kamala Harris was born in Oakland, CA to Shyamala Gopalan, an Indian-American medical researcher, and Donald Harris, a Jamaican-American professor. Her parents split when she was young and she was primarily raised by her mother, moving every few years as she took on new roles.[14] Harris attended Howard University, a historically black college in Washington, D.C., for undergrad before earning a law degree from U.C. Davis, where she was president of the Black Law Students Association.[15] A career prosecutor, Harris was elected to two terms as District Attorney of San Francisco County, then another two terms as Attorney General of California, though halfway into her second term as California AG, she was elected to the United States Senate, becoming the first Indian American woman and second African American woman to serve in that body.

Policy positions and record

She is associated with the party moderates, but does lean left on a few issues. As a Senator, she was against the death penalty, is pro-choice, has co-sponsored California's Marijuana Justice Act and is pro-sanctuary cities.[7] During her presidential campaign she tried to run in between the moderate and progressive lanes, focusing on the shockingly high maternal mortality rate in the U.S., especially among black women, gun control, and even indicating that she supports Medicare For All.

Criminal justice

As the former top prosecutor of the largest state in the country, the most scrutiny into Harris's record has come from her actions as California Attorney General. In that capacity, she covered up information revealing that the police crime lab had been falsifying or tampering with evidence against over 600 defendants in criminal cases,[16] withheld evidence proving people's innocence during prosecutions then fought on numerous occasions to stop innocent people from being released after it was proven that they were falsely convicted,[17] kept a top aide in the office for months after he was ordered to pay $400,000 in a workplace sexual harassment lawsuit and falsely claimed to have no knowledge of the settlement,[18] tried to hold criminally liable the parents of chronically truant children,[19] and refused[note 2] to prosecute Steven Mnuchin's OneWest Bank for illegal foreclosure during the Great Recession (though non-prosecution and weak settlements were the national norm during that crisis and Harris was not exceptional).[20]

All of this is ironic given that she portrayed herself as a "progressive prosecutor" during her ill-fated campaign.[21]

Healthcare

Harris has said she would co-sponsor Bernie Sanders' Medicare for All bill, which would implement a single-payer universal healthcare system in the United States.[22]

Gun ownership

She has earned an "F" from the NRA for her gun control stance.[23] This grade, of course, translates into an "A" in Reality Land.

Trans rights

As Attorney General of California, Kamala Harris argued on behalf of the state to withhold reassignment surgeries from two transgender inmates who were prescribed those procedures while serving their sentences, stating in a court briefing that: "The essential test is one of medical necessity and not one simply of desirability."[24] In explaining her actions, Harris said, "When that case came up, I had clients, and one of them was the California Department of Corrections. It was their policy. When I learned about what they were doing, behind the scenes, I got them to change the policy."[25]

Notably, while she was San Francisco District Attorney, Harris organized a conference of 200 prosecutors in response to the murder of the transgender woman Gwen Araujo, on the topic of how to defeat the bogus trans panic/gay panic defense strategy.[25][26]

Israel and Palestine

Harris' rhetoric on the Israel and Palestine conflict has so far been pro-Israel, and quiet on Palestinian issues.[27] In 2020 Harris, like most Democratic candidates including Bernie Sanders, decided not to attend the AIPAC summit, after progressive advocacy group MoveOn urged candidates not to go.[28] In 2024, Harris was known to be a voice within the Biden Administration calling for more restraint and more consideration for the plight of Palestinians during the Israel-Hamas war.[29] Knowing this, the White House allowed her to call for a 6-week ceasefire.[30] She also stated that campus protesters against the war were showing "what human emotion should be."[31] As a presidential candidate, she vowed that she would not "be silent" about suffering in Gaza.[32] She has not yet made many substantive public statements detailing a change in policy. However, she did reportedly signal an openness to discussing a weapons embargo during a meeting with leaders of the "Uncommitted" movement in Michigan, a group of largely Arab-American and pro-Palestinian voters that encouraged voters dissatisfied with President Biden's Israel policy to vote for the uncommitted ballot line during the primaries.[33]

Prostitution

Harris "has a regressive record when it comes to sex-worker rights".[34] During her tenure as district attorney of San Francisco, she "opposed Proposition K — a measure that aimed to decriminalize sex work",[35] arguing that "[i]t would put a welcome mat out for pimps and prostitutes"[35] despite the fact that "the proposition grew out of years of advocacy and research."[35] While serving as Attorney General of California, she was "active in leading the charge against Backpage.com, a website that hosted classifieds ads and was used by many escorts — and, according to sex workers, a platform that was used as a resource for vetting clients and keeping themselves safe. In 2016, she filed numerous charges against the owners of the site, including money laundering, pimping, and conspiracy to commit pimping. Her argument was that it was a hub for sex trafficking, with some of the victims being children, even though the site was far more often used by escorts doing consensual sex work."[34] The pimping charges were dismissed by Superior Court Judge Lawrence Brown, who wrote that the "attempt to assign criminal liability to defendants who offered an online forum on which other people posted advertisements that led to prostitution [...] confuse moral obligations with legal ones and have been rejected in other jurisdictions".[36]

Harris was also a "cosponsor"[37] and supporter of FOSTA-SESTAWikipedia (the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA)) and Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA), a set of bills signed into law under President Donald Trump which were intended to tackle sex trafficking, but which also conflate "consensual sex work with nonconsensual sex work by doing nothing to differentiate between various kinds of sex work and related content — even if the workers and content are all legally protected by local law."[38] FOSTA-SESTA has been described as a "complete disaster"[39] which "has only put sex workers in danger and wasted taxpayer money".[40]

Harris has indicated that she supports the decriminalization of sex work, at least partially.[41] However, she "appears to still support criminalizing purchasing sex",[42] despite the fact that doing so "harms sex workers and causes violence", according to advocacy groups.[43]

2024 Presidential Campaign

Heading into 2022, it wasn't clear whether Joe Biden would run for re-election; his advanced age, relative unpopularity, and the gradual consolidation of the GOP around Trump all raised questions about the Democrats' willingness to renominate Biden. After a stronger than expected midterm cycle where Democrats narrowly lost the House while gaining a Senate seat, these fears were mostly allayed and Biden announced his re-election campaign. Biden cruised past (mostly) token opposition in the primaries, including a win in the nonbinding New Hampshire primary as a write-in candidate and a dominant victory in South Carolina, though there was that loss in American Samoa. That said, there were glaring issues with the Biden campaign from the beginning, and by May 2024, polling showed him behind Trump in every state he needed to win. With the nominees of each major party seemingly locked in, Joe Biden and Donald Trump agreed to a debate on June 27, 2024. Simply put, the debate was a disaster for Biden. After Joe Biden's implosion on the debate stage, growing Democratic fears of another Trump presidency and unified Republican control of Congress led prominent Democrats and party leadership to either publicly call for Biden's withdrawal from the race or privately contact him to persuade him to drop out. These Democrats included Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, and former HUD Secretary Julian Castro. Barack Obama was also thought to have private concerns regarding Biden's viability, though he didn't make any public statements.[44]

Initially content to ride out the calls, the Biden campaign recognized its weakening position and Joe Biden withdrew his candidacy on July 21, 2024, throwing his support behind Harris, who announced her candidacy an hour later and spent her day speaking with other prominent Democrats and party leaders to guarantee her victory. Harris was quickly endorsed by the Democratic Governors Association, all 50 state party chairs, and prominent members of the party including Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and Barack and Michelle Obama. She also set a fundraising record, raising $81 million in her first 24 hours. Having taken over the Biden campaign, Harris also inherited a fully built out campaign apparatus and President Biden's considerable war chest.

Trump, who was planning on coasting to victory after the debate and spent the entire RNC bashing Biden, predictably spiraled once he realized that the previously demoralized Democratic Party rallied so quickly behind Harris, immediately launching smears about her racial identity and personal life. Many of these attacks failed to stick as Harris quickly built momentum, leading Trump to become even more unhinged. Most of Trump's attacks on Biden centered around Biden's age and perceived mental fragility, but with Trump now the oldest person to seek the presidency, the age issue backfired horribly and fell off the table.

Vice Presidential Selection

Many Democrats who called for Biden's removal favored an "open" primary process, where top Democrats publicly and privately duked it out for the nomination like they did in the days before binding primaries. This failed to materialize as figures like Sens. Mark Kelly (AZ) and Raphael Warnock (GA), Govs. Gretchen Whitmer (MI), Josh Shapiro (PA), Andy Beshear (KY), J.B. Pritzker (IL), Wes Moore (MD) and Roy Cooper (NC), and Secretary Pete Buttigieg quickly coalesced around Harris. However, the veepstakes was a different story. For differing reasons, Govs. Cooper, Moore, and Whitmer all publicly removed themselves from consideration early on. The Harris for President campaign officially met with six leading Democrats: Beshear, Buttigieg, Kelly, Pritzker, Shapiro, and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, all of whom privately and publicly auditioned for the role in cable news appearances. Buttigieg and Pritzker were never really taken seriously, while Beshear's candidacy flamed out. Ultimately, the consideration narrowed to Kelly, Shapiro, and Walz.

As a strong speaker, the incumbent governor of a crucial state, and potential future contender for the Democratic nomination, Josh Shapiro was quickly favored as the frontrunner by pundits, especially the Never Trump Republicans, and party insiders. However, as the frontrunner, Shapiro appeared to go on cruise control, staying silent in the face of numerous oppo dumps and leaks against him, including criticism of his handling of campus protests, his views on Israel and Palestine, and his handling of the controversial Ellen Greenberg case.[45][46] Most crucially, Senator John Fetterman, Shapiro's longtime rival within the state, privately contacted the Harris campaign and told them his concerns regarding Shapiro's potential place on the ticket.[47] Pennsylvania politicians, including Philadelphia mayor Cherelle Parker, also openly lobbied for Harris to choose him, including making an ad featuring prominent Pennsylvania Democrats supporting Harris for President and Shapiro for Vice President.[48] This rankled the Harris team, as did his interview with Harris, where he attempted to negotiate a role for himself as VP and revealed he struggled with the idea of leaving Pennsylvania to become Vice President. As criticism of Shapiro grew, his allies in the party and in the media began accusing his critics of antisemitism, which was cut short when Nancy Pelosi dismissed the allegations outright.

With the border becoming something of a liability for Democrats, Senator Mark Kelly (AZ) quickly solidified himself as a frontrunner as a prominent figure in a border swing state. Known to most Democrats as a former astronaut and the husband of former Rep. Gabby Giffords, who survived an assassination attempt, Kelly intrigued donors. However, Kelly was slow to support the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, waiting until after he was named as a potential contender for VP to officially become a Senate cosponsor of the bill, which rankled unions. Sen. Kelly also faced questions about his effectiveness as a surrogate and ability to rally crowds as his own, and the possibility of a special election in 2026 to fill a potential senate vacancy in Arizona made Democrats uneasy. What doomed Kelly the most, however, is that he was seen as insufficiently loyal to President Biden, both before and after the debate; Walz frequently framed his success as governor "the Biden Agenda" and led a delegation of Democratic governors to the White House in support of Biden after the debate; Shapiro publicly supported Biden's decision to stay in the race.[49]

The party's leading progressives and grassroots figures quickly favored Beshear or Walz, as did the party's top union surrogate, UAW President Shawn Fain, criticizing Kelly's delayed support for the PRO Act and Shapiro's support for school vouchers.[50] Walz, a former congressman, also had a very prominent ally in Nancy Pelosi, who is known to favor former colleagues, as well as American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten, who quietly made it known that her union's rank-and-file preferred Walz. Walz, who represented a Republican-leaning district in Congress before signing a blitz of Democratic priorities into law as governor of Minnesota, including paid family leave, universal school breakfast and lunch, banning conversion therapy, and codifying abortion rights, quickly shot to the top of the list when he called J. D. Vance, Trump's running mate, "weird," a line which quickly stuck and led to the Harris campaign using it in digital materials. His record as governor also won him plaudits from progressives. Walz's Congressional experience was also seen as a plus, but he impressed Harris in his interview by pledging his total support and confirming that he would defer to her as president. The fact that no major constituency within the party opposed him was also seen as a plus, as was his loyalty to President Biden.[51]

Ultimately, Harris chose to double down on the goodwill she'd built up from the party base and selected Walz, highlighting his appeal as a veteran, public school teacher, and Representative from a rural district.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ As used by the wingnuts at Conservapedia.
  2. ↑ Against the recommendation of state's Justice Department.

References

  1. ↑ Kamala Harris on Joe Biden, Being a ‘First’ and Restoring the Soul of the Nation: The 2020 TIME Person of the Year Interview by Madeleine Carlisle (December 10, 2020 10:52 PM EST) Time.
  2. ↑ Tucker Carlson can't pronounce her name
  3. ↑ 2020 Presidential Election Results. Archived from The New York Times, 3 November 2020.
  4. ↑ Anthony Brown, Charles Curtis: America’s Indian Vice President. The One Feather, 4 February 2014.
  5. ↑ "We're not going back: Some Never-Trump Republicans embrace Harris' 'top cop' persona," Kathrine Doyle, NBC News
  6. ↑ https://kamalaharris.com/issues/
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Emily Bazelon, Kamala Harris, a ‘Top Cop’ in the Era of Black Lives Matter. Archived from The New York Times, 25 May 2016.
  8. ↑ Kamala Harris' Biography. Vote Smart.
  9. ↑ Maeve Reston, Kamala Harris officially launches 2020 presidential campaign. CNN 28 January 2019.
  10. ↑ Musadiq Bider, Twitter slow to remove racist and sexist tweets targeting Vice President Kamala Harris, report finds. CBS News, 9 June 2022.
  11. ↑ Zach Haberman, Trump echoes fringe birther attack on Harris. NBC News, 13 August 2020.
  12. ↑ John C. Eastman, Some Questions for Kamala Harris About Eligibility. Newsweek, 12 August 2020.

    Editor's note, 8/14: This op-ed is being used by some as a tool to perpetuate racism and xenophobia. We apologize. The essay, by John Eastman, was intended to explore a minority legal argument about the definition of who is a "natural-born citizen" in the United States. But to many readers, the essay inevitably conveyed the ugly message that Senator Kamala Harris, a woman of color and the child of immigrants, was somehow not truly American.

  13. ↑ Nancy Cooper and Josh Hammer, Editor's Note: Eastman's Newsweek Column Has Nothing to Do With Racist Birtherism. Newsweek, 13 August 2020.
  14. ↑ https://edition.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/10/22/california.kamala.harris.profile/
  15. ↑ https://www.uclawsf.edu/2016/11/09/uc-hastings-congratulates-kamala-harris-89-californias-next-u-s-senator/
  16. ↑ Judge rips Harris' office for hiding problems’, by Jaxon Van Derbeken, SF Gate, 21 May 2010
  17. ↑ Kamala Harris Was Not a ‘Progressive Prosecutor’, by Lara Bazelon, The New York Times, 17 January 2019
  18. ↑ Misconduct claim involving Kamala Harris aide came to agency months before she left office, by ALEXEI KOSEFF, The Sacramento Bee, 18 December 2018
  19. ↑ The Two Faces of Kamala Harris by Branko Marcetic (08.10.2017) Jaocbin.
  20. ↑ The Left’s Misguided Debate Over Kamala Harris by David Dayen (August 8, 2017) The New Republic.
  21. ↑ Kamala Harris’ Presidential Run Will Force Democrats to Decide Where They Really Stand on Criminal Justice by Jamilah King (January 9, 2019) Mother Jones.
  22. ↑ Weigel, David (August 30, 2017). "Sen. Kamala Harris backs Bernie Sanders's single-payer bill". Retrieved August 31, 2017. 
  23. ↑ Kamala Harris on Gun Control. On the Issues.
  24. ↑ Johnson, Chris (October 25, 2017). "Kamala Harris emerges as LGBT favorite for 2020 — there’s just one thing". 
  25. ↑ 25.0 25.1 Kamala Harris on Denying Gender Affirmation Surgery to Trans Inmates by Tracy E. Gilchrist (September 20 2019 10:38 PM EDT) The Advocate.
  26. ↑ 'Gay panic' defense tactic under scrutiny at conference by Wyatt (4:00 am PDT, Wednesday, July 19, 2006) The San Francisco Chronicle.
  27. ↑ Transcript: Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) Tuesday March 28, 2017. Archived from AIPAC Policy Conference 2019.
  28. ↑ Elana Schor and Juana Summers, Multiple 2020 Democrats say they won’t attend AIPAC summit. Times of Israel, 21 March 2019.
  29. ↑ https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/renewed-gaza-fighting-stretches-into-second-day-after-israel-hamas-truce-2023-12-01/
  30. ↑ https://www.npr.org/2024/03/04/1234822836/kamala-harris-benny-gantz-gaza-cease-fire-israel-hamas
  31. ↑ https://www.timesofisrael.com/kamala-harris-anti-israel-protesters-showing-exactly-what-human-emotion-should-be/
  32. ↑ https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/25/politics/harris-netanyahu-israel-hamas-ceasefire/index.html
  33. ↑ https://www.newsweek.com/kamala-harris-open-israel-arms-embargo-palestine-conflict-1936259
  34. ↑ 34.0 34.1 Ed Dickson, Why Sex Workers Are Wary of Kamala Harris. Rolling Stone, 14 August 2020.
  35. ↑ 35.0 35.1 35.2 Wren Sanders, Unpacking Kamala Harris's Record on Trans and Sex Work Issues. Them, 14 August 2020.
  36. ↑ Eric Goldman, Backpage Executives Must Face Money Laundering Charges Despite Section 230–People v. Ferrer.Technology and Marketing Law Blog, 24 August 2017.
  37. ↑ Sessi Kuwabara Blanchard, Presidential Hopeful Kamala Harris Has Helped Make Sex Workers’ Lives More Dangerous. Filter, 23 January 2019.
  38. ↑ Aja Romano, A new law intended to curb sex trafficking threatens the future of the internet as we know it. Vox, 2 July 2018.
  39. ↑ Andrew Wyrich, Government report says widely criticized SESTA/FOSTA law has barely been used. Daily Dot, 23 June 2021.
  40. ↑ Karol Markowicz, Congress' awful anti-sex-trafficking law has only put sex workers in danger and wasted taxpayer money. Business Insider, 14 July 2019.
  41. ↑ Nur Ibrahim, Does Kamala Harris Want To Legalize Prostitution? Snopes, 11 November 2020.
  42. ↑ Melissa Gira Grant, Kamala Harris brought sex work into the 2020 spotlight. Here’s what she should do next. The Washington Post, 2 March 2019.
  43. ↑ Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About The Swedish Model (Aka The Nordic Model) Archived from The Swarm Collective, 8 December 2020.
  44. ↑ https://apnews.com/article/biden-democrats-drop-out-election-2024-3f9e3d15431fd4974771a54e1d0e4ea7
  45. ↑ https://jacobin.com/2024/08/josh-shapiro-harris-vice-president
  46. ↑ https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/josh-shapiro-ellen-greenberg-case-suicide-homicide-review-20240805.html
  47. ↑ https://www.politico.com/news/2024/08/03/fetterman-shapiro-harris-vp-00172557
  48. ↑ https://www.cbsnews.com/philadelphia/news/philadelphia-mayor-cherelle-parker-josh-shapiro-vice-president-kamala-harris-endorsement/
  49. ↑ https://x.com/Yamiche/status/1820975033235480704
  50. ↑ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/beshear-walz-are-uaws-vp-picks-harris/
  51. ↑ https://www.politico.com/news/2024/08/06/walz-told-harris-vp-interview-00172952
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