Kamala Harris

Politician

• Born: October 20, 1964
• Place of Birth: Oakland, California

In January 2021, Kamala Harris became the first woman, the first Black American, and first Asian American to serve as vice president of the United States. She represented California as a US senator from 2017 to 2021 and mounted her own presidential campaign before becoming Joe Biden's running mate in 2020. She ran again for president in 2024, after Joe Biden ended his reelection campaign in July of that year, but lost to Donald Trump. Harris previously served as the thirty-second attorney general of California from 2011 to 2017, becoming known for her “smart-on-crime” approach. She was the first woman, first South Asian American, and first Black American to hold the office of attorney general in the history of California as well as the first Indian American attorney general in the United States.

Early Life and Education

Kamala Devi Harris was born on October 20, 1964, in Oakland, California. Her mother, physician and breast cancer specialist Dr. Shyamala Gopalan Harris, was of Tamil Indian descent and emigrated from Chennai, India, in 1960 to pursue graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Her father, Donald Harris, was of Jamaican American heritage and worked as a professor of economics. Harris grew up with her younger sister, Maya, who would go on to become a civil rights attorney. The sisters were raised in Berkeley, California, in a household that celebrated both parents’ cultures. During her childhood, Harris’s parents were both active in the civil rights movement of the 1960s. They instilled in Harris a powerful commitment to equal rights, social justice, and public service.

Following her parents' divorce, Harris relocated to Montreal, Canada, with her mother. There she briefly attended the FACE School before enrolling in Westmount High School in 1978. She attended Westmount until 1981. Despite her parents’ divorce, Harris continued to visit relatives in Jamaica and India regularly, which influenced her worldview and provided her with a profound appreciation for her blended heritage.

In 1982, Harris moved from California to Washington, DC, to attend Howard University, the United States’ oldest historically Black university, where she became involved in public service and social activism. As a first-year student, she was elected to the Liberal Arts Student Council. While attending Howard, Harris was initiated into the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, an international service organization whose membership consists of women who participate in the global community through service and advocacy. In 1986, she graduated from Howard with a bachelor of arts degree; in 1989, she received her law degree from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law.

San Francisco District Attorney

After graduating from law school, Harris remained committed to public service and social justice. Instead of entering private practice, she served as deputy district attorney in the Alameda County district attorney’s office. From 1990 to 1998, she prosecuted hundreds of felonies, specializing in child sexual assault cases. Harris also served on the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board and the Medical Assistance Commission. From 1998 to 2000, she was managing attorney of the career-criminal unit in the San Francisco district attorney’s office, and from 2001 to 2003, she headed the San Francisco city attorney’s division on families and children.

In 2003, Harris became the first female district attorney in San Francisco’s history and the first South Asian American and first Black American woman to hold the office in California. She was reelected to a second term in 2007. As district attorney, her Back on Track program significantly reduced recidivism in San Francisco. In 2009, the National District Attorneys Association and the United States Department of Justice selected the Back on Track program as a model reentry program for district attorney offices nationwide. Harris also sought to reduce the murder rate by threatening a range of penalties on the parents of truant students, from required parent-staff meetings to fines to jail time; it was seen as a success: no one was jailed, and truancy fell steeply.

Also in 2009, Harris published her book Smart on Crime: A Career Prosecutor’s Plan to Make Us Safer, in which she presents her innovative plan for the criminal justice system. She proposes that being either tough or weak on crime is a false choice, instead arguing that the correct choice is to be smart on crime. Her smart-on-crime approach proved a successful strategy for punishing criminals while also preventing crime: by 2011, San Francisco’s felony-conviction rates for violent offenses were at their highest level in fifteen years.

As district attorney, Harris created prosecution units focused on child sex assault, public integrity, and environmental crimes, and also focused on prosecuting elder abuse and financial crimes. Additionally, she expanded services to victims of crime and their families. Under her leadership, the district attorney’s office initiated outreach programs in San Francisco communities and established free clinics in immigrant communities. She also showed leniency in applying California's controversial Three Strikes law, pursuing the maximum sentences for only the gravest third-time offenses, and opposed the death penalty.

Harris received many accolades throughout her early career. In 2004 she was named Child Advocate of the Year by the San Francisco Child Abuse Prevention Council and recognized as a “woman of power” by the National Urban League. She was named one of the top one hundred lawyers in California in 2005 and 2010 by the Daily Journal legal newspaper, and in 2006 by California Lawyer Magazine. In 2006 Howard University awarded Harris the Outstanding Alumni Award for her extraordinary work in the fields of law and public service, and she was also selected to serve as a Rodel Fellow in Public Leadership with the Aspen Institute. After being elected to the board of directors of the California District Attorneys Association in 2006, Harris served as a vice president of the National District Attorneys Association.

California Attorney General

On January 3, 2011, Harris was sworn in as the thirty-second attorney general of California. She was the first woman, first South Asian American, and first Black American to hold that office in California, as well as the first Indian American attorney general in the United States. In 2013 Harris was named of the 100 Most Influential People in the World by Time magazine. She was reelected the following year. She was awarded the Bipartisan Justice Award in 2016.

During Harris's tenure as attorney general, she worked to defend California's climate change law, protect the Affordable Care Act, and uphold marriage equality. In 2012 she negotiated $18.4 billion in debt relief and $2 billion in other financial assistance for California homeowners in the National Mortgage Settlement against the nation's five largest mortgage servicers who were accused of illegal foreclosures. In 2013 she launched the California Department of Justice's Division of Recidivism Reduction and Re-Entry. In 2016 she prosecuted over fifty members of a gang that trafficked drugs and weapons.

Harris's actions as attorney general were not without controversy, however. Harris expanded her anti-truancy efforts, a decision that was later criticized as some parents were jailed in other parts of California. While Harris allowed local police departments to use body cameras, then a new technology, and to investigate officer-involved shootings, she did not impose statewide requirements for either one. Critics have also faulted her for appealing a court ruling that found the state's lengthy death-penalty process unconstitutional; Harris, however, pointed out that her role demanded she defend the law and that the ruling could have expedited executions in death-penalty cases.

US Senator

In January 2015, Harris announced her intention to run for the US Senate after the retirement of Senator Barbara Boxer. Facing fellow Democrat congresswoman Loretta Sanchez in the 2016 general election, Harris earned over 60 percent of the vote. She resigned as attorney general of California on January 3, 2017, and was sworn in as a senator on the same day.

In the US Senate, Harris served on the homeland security and governmental affairs committee, the budget committee, the judiciary committee, and on the select committee on intelligence. Her national profile was raised considerably by her staunch opposition to President Donald Trump, including tough questioning of many of his appointees during Senate confirmation hearings. She opposed Trump's attempt to institute a travel ban in 2017, as well as the Trump administration's family separation policy regarding undocumented immigrants and refugees in 2018. She supported a bail reform bill, a workplace harassment bill, and an election security bill.

Harris was presented with the ECOS Environmental Award in 2018. She also published two more books in 2019, the autobiographical The Truths We Hold: An American Journey and the socially conscious children's book Superheroes Are Everywhere.

Vice President

Harris announced her candidacy for president in the 2020 presidential election in January 2019. Although she received significant early donations and support in the polls, her popularity fell after the first Democratic presidential debate. In December 2019 she withdrew from the race, citing a shortage of funds. She endorsed former opponent Joe Biden in March 2020, and he went on to earn the Democratic presidential nomination. In August 2020 Biden announced Harris as his running mate. The nomination made her the first woman of color on a major-party ticket.

In November 2020 Biden was announced as the winner of the 2020 presidential election, making Harris the vice president–elect of the United States. She was inaugurated on January 20, 2021, making her the first woman, the first Black person, and the first South Asian American to serve as vice president.

In the first months of her vice presidency, Harris cast several notable tie-breaking votes in her official capacity as president of the Senate, which was evenly divided between liberals and conservatives. She went on to serve as a Senate tie-breaker more than any of her predecessors had. For example, she was instrumental in moving Biden's massive COVID-19 relief plan into the debate stage in February and March 2021 and cast the deciding vote in the confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the US Supreme Court in April 2022.

Harris also worked diplomatically with Mexico and Central American countries to try to address the root causes of northward migration; sought to secure voting rights; pushed to expand child care funds; supported Biden's decision to remove US troops from Afghanistan; and encouraged the public to receive COVID-19 vaccines. On September 11, 2021, the twentieth anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attack, Harris gave a speech at a memorial event. That November she briefly took over as acting president while Biden underwent a routine medical procedure, as per US policy, making her the first woman ever to technically hold those powers. Following the Supreme Court's reversal of Roe v. Wade in June 2022, Harris positioned herself as a vocal champion of maternal health and reproductive rights, and in March 2024, she became the first vice president to visit an abortion clinic.

Despite her accomplishments, many observers felt that Harris struggled to establish a clear identity as vice president early in the term. For example, she was absent from or had a limited role in certain high-profile administration initiatives, leading to questions about her working relationship with President Biden. Harris's early comments on immigration issues drew some criticism from both ends of the political spectrum. Some found fault in the high-profile departure of staffers from her office, believing it to be indicative of poor management. Others noted that Harris's frequent Senate tie-breaking likely prevented her from taking on some other duties and that she was operating under the unusual circumstances of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which limited her travel opportunities. Her allies also suggested that she often faced greater public scrutiny than typical for vice presidents, in part due to her trailblazing status.

When Biden decided to campaign for a second term in office, Harris remained on the ticket as his running mate. After serious doubts emerged regarding whether Biden could win in a rematch against Donald Trump, however, Biden ultimately stepped aside in July 2024 and endorsed Harris as a presidential candidate in his stead. Despite raising substantial funds, emphasizing her experience as a prosecutor, earning celebrity endorsements, and campaigning heavily on issues such as the economy, safeguarding democracy, immigration, and reproductive rights, it was announced shortly after the closing of polls that she was projected to lose the election; Trump was deemed the winner. Unable to secure wins in key swing states like Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, she had lagged in both Electoral College and popular votes.

Personal Life

In the mid-1990s, Harris had a brief but well-publicized romantic relationship with Willie Brown, a politician who was then the California State Assembly leader and later became mayor of San Francisco.

In 2014 Harris married attorney Douglas “Doug” Emhoff, who has two children from a previous marriage.

Impact

A passionate activist, Harris devoted her advocacy skills and political resources to redefining the criminal justice system by implementing an innovative approach to prosecuting crime while remaining committed to rehabilitation and preserving civil liberties. As a prosecutor, district attorney, and attorney general, Harris led efforts to strengthen services for victims of domestic violence, rehabilitate formerly incarcerated people, and make communities safer. True to the values instilled in her by her parents, she remained dedicated to public service, advocating for equality and social justice as a senator and as vice president.

In addition to her policy achievements, Harris is notable for her pioneering status in several prominent roles. She made history as the first female district attorney in San Francisco; as the first woman, first South Asian American, and first Black American to serve as California's attorney general; and as the first Indian American attorney general in the United States. She was also the first Indian American to serve in the US Senate and just the second Black American woman to do so. As the first woman, first Black woman, and first Asian person to become US vice president, she broke further ground and became an internationally famous role model to many.

She was named jointly with Biden as the Time Person of the Year in 2020. The following year, Harris was selected to Forbes's inaugural 50 Over 50 list.

Bibliography

Armour, Stephanie. “Harris, Who Is Biden’s Voice on Abortion Rights, Is Likely to Raise the Volume.” NPR, 22 July 2024, www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2024/07/22/nx-s1-5048045/harris-abortion-health-drug-prices-insulin-medicare. Accessed 22 July 2024.

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Harris, Kamala. “Kamala Harris, District Attorney.” In Their Shoes: Extraordinary Women Describe Their Amazing Careers. By Deborah Reber. Simon Pulse, 2007. 33–39.

Harris, Kamala. “Smart on Crime.” After the War on Crime: Race, Democracy, and a New Reconstruction. Edited by Mary Louise Frampton, Ian Haney-Lopez, and Jonathan Simon. New York UP, 2008, pp. 145–50.

Harris, Kamala, and J. O. C. Hamilton. Smart on Crime: A Career Prosecutor’s Plan to Make Us Safer. Chronicle, 2009.

Jaffe, Alexandra. “Harris Still Struggling to Define Herself One Year in VP Job.” AP News, 18 Jan. 2022, apnews.com/article/voting-rights-joe-biden-kamala-harris-jen-psaki-voting-d6e38ab9c44b9f7f34cdfe1a7ecbac0a. Accessed 27 Jan. 2022.

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Vazquez, Maegan. “Kamala Harris’s Life, Career and Firsts from AG to the Vice Presidency.” The Washington Post, 21 July 2024, www.washingtonpost.com/photography/2020/08/14/amp-stories/moments-kamala-harriss-career-captured-photos-2. Accessed 22 July 2024.