2020 Candidate Profiles – Kamala Harris

Well here we are now with all the hubbub of the 2019 UK General Election over and done with we can finally focus more so now on the upcoming 2020 presidential election which I feel will come quicker than we may realize.

On another note, Donald Trump is likely to be impeached today by the House of Representatives which is controlled by the Democrats but that does not mean he will be removed from office, it will instead trigger a trial in the Senate (the upper house) which is controlled by the Republicans, so it is liklely he will be acquitted. The two articles of impeachment will be obstruction of justice and abuse of power, both likely to be voted through.

Anyway further on in the 2020 election we have also had three further candidates running for office as Democrats, they are Tom Steyer, a big Trump critic who has been known to use his vast wealth to promote anti-Trump slogans, being the 26th Democratic candidate to run for office. Next up there is Deval Patrick, a lesser known figure who is the former Governor of Massachusetts from 2007 to 2015, being the 27th Democratic candidate to run and finally another bigger name, Micheal Bloomberg, the big CEO of Bloomberg L.P conglomerate, which many may know best for its news media, such as the Bloomberg news channel. He is another big Trump critic. Bloomberg is also a former Mayor of New York City from 2002 to 2013 and is the 28th Democratic candidate to run.

But this post will be focusing on Kamala Harris, one of the big names to have dropped out of the 2020 Presidential race being the 14th Democratic candidate to have dropped out so far, most likely down to her lesser popularity up against the current big 3 candidates, which are Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden. Kamala Harris was originally one of the top candidates closer to the beginning of the 2020 runnings but slowly fell out of favour as time went on. But her becoming president some time in another future presidential election is hardly ruled out.

So let’s go over some of the stuff she has done in government… as well as other stuff about Kamala Harris.

Kamala Harris. Photo in Public Domain as US Government work.

Basic Information

DoB: October 20^th, 1964 in Oakland, California, US.

Religion: Baptist and Hindu background

Education: Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Economics from Stanford University. Juris Doctor from University of California, Hastings College of the Law (1989)

Positions

Served as Deputy District Attorney to Alameda County, California from 1990 to 1998. Also appointed to several State Boards during this time.
Recruited by San Francisco mayor in 2000 to serve as chief of the Community and Neighbourhood Division.
Served as the San Francisco District Attorney from 2004 to 2011.
Served on the board of the California District Attorneys Association and was vice president of the National District Attorneys Association.
Served as the Attorney General of California from 2011 to 2017.
Sat on the Committee on the Budget.
Sat on the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs including the subcommittee on Federal Spending Oversight and Emergency Management and the Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs and Federal Management.
Sat on the Select Committee on Intelligence.
Sat on the Committee on the Judiciary including the Subcommittee on the Constitution, the Subcommittee on Oversight, Agency Action, Federal Rights and Federal Courts and the Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law.
Member of the Congressional Black Caucus.
Member of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus.
Member of the Congressional Caucus for Woman’s Issues.

Other Notable Achievements

Admitted to the State Bar of California in 1990.
Released a book in 2009 about the Justice System and crime called “Smart on Crime: A Career Prosecutor’s Plan to Make Us Safer”.
Harris was recognised by The Los Angeles Daily Journal as one of the top 100 lawyers in California.
Harris received the Thurgood Marshall Award from the National Black Prosecutors Association in 2005.

Overview

Announced bid for 2020 President on 21^st January 2019, being the 6^th Democratic Candidate to do so. She is currently serving as a Senator to California in the Federal Senate (Upper House of Federal Congress). She has had a long career in the law side of politics holding several Attorney positions before entering Congress. She has largely Progressive views on mostly all fronts such as gun control, immigration, LGBT support, racial and gender inequality and so on. She is also one of big Trump critics. She is one of the favourites to get the Democrat 2020 presidential nomination and even to win the election. In the end though, facing lowering popularity, she dropped out of the race on December 3rd 2019, being the 14th Democratic candidate to do so.

Political Career

District Attorney of San Francisco – 2004 – 2011

In 2004 Harris decided not to seek the death penalty for the killer of San Francisco Police Department Officer Isaac Espinoza, who was shot and killed on duty, this in turn infuriated the San Francisco Police Officers Association. At the funeral for the officer, Dianne Feinstein called on Harris (who was in attendance) to seek the death penalty, in response 2,000 police officers at the funeral stood up in agreement. Despite this Harris still refused to seek the death penalty for the killer who was sentenced for murder and given life in prison, thereafter Harris demoted veteran career prosecutor Paul Cummins, chief assistant to her predecessor from the 80-person felony prosecution unit to Harris’s former position in the DA’s office.

Started the Back-on-Track Initiative which was a re-entry program. Petty criminals (who were non-violent, first-time drug offenders whose crimes were not weapon or gang related) were encouraged to plead guilty to their actions for a deferral in sentencing and regular appearances to a judge for a 1-year period. If the people on this program could obtain a high-school-equivalency diploma, maintain steady employment, take parenting classes and pass drug tests would have their criminal record cleared. Over an eight-year period it only produced fewer than 300 graduates but did achieve a very low recidivism rate. In 2009 a state law bill of the Back-on-Track program was voted through state legislature and signed into law to encourage other counties to take it up.
While Harris was in office the felony conviction rate rose from 52% in 2003 to 67% in 2006, including an 85% conviction rate for homicides and drug dealer convictions rising from 56% in 2003 to 74% in 2006.
Harris closed many cases via plea bargains while in office, this included 32 homicide cases out of 73 that were backlogged received lesser charges such as manslaughter or took pleas to other crimes such as assault or burglary while the homicide charges were dismissed.
Officers with the SFPD credited Harris with tightening loopholes in bail and drug programs that defendants exploited previously. But they also accused her of being too deliberate on her prosecution of murder suspects.
Harris created the special Hate Crimes Unit, to focus on hate crimes against LGBT children and teens in schools. She also convened a national conference to confront the “gay-transgender panic defense” which had been used to justify violent hate crimes. Harris supports same-sex marriage and opposed proposition 8 and proposition 22 during her time as SF Attorney.

Harris created the Environmental Justice Unit and prosecuted several industries and individuals for pollution. Some of these included U-Haul, Alameda Publishing Corporation and entities to do with the Cosco Busan Oil Spill. During her time as SA District Attorney she advocated for strong enforcement for Environmental Protection Laws.

Attorney General of California – 2011 – 2017

Took office as California was still dealing with the effects of the subprime mortgage crisis. Harris took part in the National Mortgage Settlement against five banks and secured $12 billion debt reduction for the state’s homeowners and $26 billion overall.
Harris introduced the California Homeowner’s Bill to the states legislature and they passed and took effect on January 1^st 2013, the bill banned “dual-tracking” which was processing a modification and foreclosure at the same time. It also banned “robo-signing” and gave homeowners a single point of contact for their institution. It also gave the Attorney General position more powers, including the investigation and prosecution of financial fraud and the power to convene special grand juries that could prosecute multi-county crimes instead of just prosecuting a single crime from county-to-county.
After the Supreme Court case Brown Vs. Plata in 2011, SCOTUS declared that prisons in California were overcrowded to the point that they inflicted cruel and unusual punishment and ordered the state to reduce crowding. The state failed to fully implement the court order and so SCOTUS ordered the state to implement new parole programs, this was appealed against by the state, the AG’s office stance was that releasing inmates early to reduce overcrowding would lose an important source of labor. Harris later backed away from her office’s argument on this, saying she didn’t like the idea of viewing inmates as indentured servants and that it evoked images of chain gangs.

Harris refused to take any positions on two pieces of local prison criminal sentencing-reform legislation, A Change in the “Three Strikes Law” Initiative (Proposition 36-2012) and Criminal Sentences. Misdemeanour Penalties. Initiative Statute (Proposition 47-2014) saying that it would not be proper as her office prepares the ballot booklets, the former AG considered her explanation to be “baloney”.
After a Federal Judge ordered the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to give an inmate transgender woman (Michelle-Lael Norsworthy) sex reassignment surgery, the CDCR represented by Harris launched an appeal in the 9^th Circuit against it saying that Norsworthy was already and still getting hormone therapy and other treatments for her gender dysphoria since 2000 and so SRS was not necessary because there was no evidence of serious, immediate physical or emotional danger. Norsworthy was released on parole before the appeal came to a conclusion and since Norsworthy was out of prison the state was not recognised to have to provide SRS treatment. Some believe, including the 9^th Circuit, that Norsworthy could have been released early on parole to avoid providing for her scheduled SRS, influenced by CDCR officials.
In 2015 Harris defended convictions that were obtained by county prosecutors by inserting a false confession into an interrogation transcript and as well as that committed perjury and withheld evidence. The Federal appeals court judge rejected Harris’s appeal and threw out the convictions and told Harris’s lawyers to talk to her and make sure she understands the gravity of the situation.
In March 2015 a California superior courts judge ordered Harris to take over a criminal case against Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas who was revealed to have employed illegal jailhouse informants and concealed evidence, but instead Harris refused, appealed the order and defended Rackauckas.
The dismissal of a Kern County prosecutor after he was perjured in submitting a falsified confession as court evidence was appealed by Harris who argued that only abject physical brutality would warrant a finding of prosecutorial misconduct and the dismissal of an indictment and that perjury was not sufficient.

Harris is known to have prosecuted many financial crimes including predatory lending. In 2011 she created the Mortgage Fraud Strike Force with a mandate to eliminate mortgage foreclosure fraud, although the task force has been criticized for not filling as many foreclosure cases as in other states which have smaller populations.
In February 2015 Harris announced she would start a new agency called the Bureau of Children’s Justice. The issues it would work on included foster care, the juvenile justice system, school truancy and childhood trauma. Special assistant attorney general Jill Habig was appointed by Harris to head the new agency.
In May 2015, after an oil spill that effected and damaged the California coastline, Harris went along the coast directing office resources and attorneys to investigate any possible criminal violations. The resulting investigation led to dozens of indictments and in June 2016 Harris issued subpoenas to Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, Phillips 66, Valero Energy and Tesoro related to an investigation into possible price-fixing.
The AG opened a criminal investigation into the Mitrice Richardson case, it was to do with an African-American woman who had been released from the Los Angeles County Sheriff Department in the middle of the night without means of defending herself, her body was later found in a nearby canyon. The AG originally refused to open a criminal conduct investigation due to lack of evidence, but reversed the decision after relatives, friends and supporters sent in almost 500 pages of evidence to Harris’s office. Despite this, in December 2016 the AG office closed the case saying there was insufficient evidence to support criminal convictions on anyone related to the case.
In October 2016 Harris announced the arrest of Backpage CEO Carl Ferrer on charges of pimping including pimping a minor and conspiracy to commit pimping. The warrant for the arrest alleged that 99% of Backpage’s revenue was directly attributable to prostitution-related ads, many of which included victims of sex trafficking also including children under the age of 18. In December 2016 a superior court judge dismissed all charges in the case but Harris filed new charges against Ferrer as well as two other former owners of Backpage, Mike Lacy and Jim Larkin, later that month, the charges alleged pimping and money laundering. After this in January 2017, Backpage announced it was removing its Adult Section from all of its sites in the US due to what it claimed as many years of harassment and extra-legal tactics. The investigations continued on even after Harris was no longer AG and in April 2018 it resulted in the FBI, US Postal Inspection Service, DoJ and Internal Revenue Service seizing Backpage sites and other affiliated sites and Ferrer later pleaded guilty to facilitating prostitution and money laundering.

In 2012, Harris sent letters to 100-different mobile-app developers which asked them to respect California law in respect to privacy. Law would be broken if any apps used by a Californian did not include a Privacy Policy, including a possible fine of $2,500 for each download by a Californian. The law is meant to affect any developer of mobile-apps no matter where in the world they are.

Senator for California, Federal Senate, Upper House of Federal Congress – 2017 – Present

During her time as Senator, Harris has been a strong critic of President Donald Trump. Harris called Trump’s inaugural address “dark” in 2017 and was strongly against the Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States executive order, describing it as a “Muslim Ban” and she called the then White House Chief of Staff John Kelly to gather information and push back against the executive order.
In February Harris made it clear she was against the nominations of Betsy DeVos for Education Secretary and Jeff Sessions as Attorney General, she also heavily critiqued Trump’s immigration policies later that same month. In March she called for Jeff Sessions to resign after it came out, he had spoken with Sergey Kislyak twice, the Russian ambassador to the US. Later in the same month she said that repealing the Affordable Care Act would send the message that health care was a privilege rather than a civil right.

Harris supports the legalization of recreational marijuana despite originally being against it. She also co-sponsored a bill called the Marijuana Justice Act that was introduced by Cory Booker, the legislation would eliminate Marijuana’s Schedule I status under the Controlled Substance Act and it would also automatically require federal courts to expunge prior federal marijuana convictions of possession and would also work to establish a grant program to incentivise the expungement of sealing of state convictions for marijuana possession.
In August 2018, Harris and 7 other Senators signed a letter to FEMA charging them with failing to help displaced homeowners in Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, under the Individuals and Households program.
Harris was one of six Senators in December 2017 to introduce the Secure Elections Act. The legislation would authorize block grants for states that were willing to upgrade outdated voting technology. The legislation would also form an independent panel of experts to work towards the development of cybersecurity guidelines for election systems which could be implemented by states if they chose to along with offering these states the resources to install the expert panels recommendations.
Was one of 8 Senators to co-sponsor the Climate Risk Disclosure Act in September 2018. According to Elizabeth Warren’s description of the legislation (who is another co-sponsor of it) said that it would use market forces to speed up the transition from fossil fuels to cleaner energy and reducing the odds of an environmental and financial disaster without spending any taxpayer money.
Harris announced on August 2017 that she would co-sponsor Bernie Saunders Medicare-for-all bill.

In April 2018 Harris was one of ten senators to sponsor the Choose Medicare Act. The legislation would expand public option for health insurance that also increase subsidies on ObamaCare and also rendered individuals with higher income eligible for its assistance.
Was one of 42 Senators in December 2018 to sign a letter to President Trump saying that some of his admin officials were exploiting parts of the Affordable Care Act to authorize states to increase health care costs for millions of consumers while weakening it for individuals with pre-existing conditions and that the policy doing this should be withdrawn.

Other Political Activity/notes

Harris is strongly pro-abortion and has maintained a 100% rating by the abortion rights group Planned Parenthood.

Harris is opposed to the death penalty but has said that she would review each case individually.
Harris believes that habitual and chronic truancy in Elementary schools should be treated as a crime committed by the parents and she also believes there is a link between truancy in school and crime in later life. She has received endorsement from the California Federation of Teachers for these views.
One of Harris’s goals is to transition the US to 100% renewable energy sources and has also declared her support for a Green New Deal, which was an idea made popular by congresswoman/house member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Harris is for gun control legislation, she has made efforts as an Attorney as well to get guns off the street, she was endorsed by US Representative Gabby Gifford who was shot in Tucson in 2011 and was also endorsed by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence for her stance on gun control.
Supports DACA and is against Trumps border wall. Harris also supports comprehensive immigration reform and supports a clean DREAM Act; such legislation would help undocumented minors gain conditional residency in the US and eventual permanent residency if certain requirements are met. Harris also does not support DoD involvement on the border with immigration affairs, asking the Trump admin to justify their usage along the border with Mexico.

Harris has a record of support for LGBT rights.
Harris opposed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 and asked for the tax cuts for wealthy Americans to be repealed. Harris supports tax cuts for middle-class and working-class Americans and said that paying for this would include repealing tax cuts on wealthy Americans and increasing taxes on corporations.
Harris has disavowed most corporate donations and has also committed to rejecting money from corporate political action committees for her presidential campaign.
Was very critical of Trump’s admin nominations and voted against most of them alongside Kirsten Gillibrand, Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.

Foreign Policy Stances

Is against Al-Assad in Syria for being a ruthless dictator and after the chemical attack in Khan Shaykhun, a war criminal. She called for President Trump to work with Congress on his admins lack of clear objectives in Syria and to make a clear strategy plan alongside allies.
At the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Harris said that she does not think Israel should just be a partisan issue but a bipartisan one in terms of its security and right to self-defense.

Harris was one of 18 Democrat Senators in February 2018 to sign a letter to President Trump that declared that he had no authority to launch a pre-emptive strike on North Korea without congressional approval.
Critiqued Trump for leaving the Iran Deal (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) saying that withdrawing from it threatened national security and isolated the US from its closest allies and said the current iteration of the deal was the best thing they had to prevent Iran developing nuclear weapons and avoiding a disastrous military conflict in the Middle East.
Harris was one of 26 Senators to sign a letter giving concern to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s decision to pull out from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty within 60 days if Russia continued to violate the treaty.

Controversies

San Francisco Death Penalty Controversy

In 2004 Harris did not seek the death penalty for the murderer of San Francisco Police Officer Isaac Espinoza causing backlash from the San Francisco Police Officers Association and Diane Feinstein. Despite backlash Harris still refused to seek the death penalty.

Back-on-Track Illegal Immigrant loophole

Harris was criticised that illegal immigrants in San Francisco were able to use the Back-on-Track initiative despite not being a citizen. Harris said this was a mistake and modified the program to bar illegal immigrants from participating in it.

Defendants’ Rights Violations

In 2012, Superior Court Judge Anne-Christine Massullo ruled that San Francisco District Attorney Harris’s office violated defendants’ rights by hiding damaging information about a police crime lab technician, and was indifferent to demands that it account for its failings.

Potential Mnuchin Conflict of Interest

In 2013 during Harris’s tenure as Attorney General for the state of California, Harris did not prosecute Steve Mnuchin’s bank OneWest despite evidence “suggestive of widespread misconduct” according to a leaked Department of Justice memo. In 2016 Mnuchin donated $2,000 to Harris’s Senate campaign, making her the only Senate Democrat that year to receive a donation from Mnuchin, some perceived this to be a conflict of interest related to her 2013 decision as California AG. In 2017 related to the rumours of collusion, Harris said that her AG offices decision not to prosecute Mnuchin was based on “following the facts and evidence, like any other case”. As Senator, Harris also voted against Mnuchin in his confirmation hearing for the position of Secretary of the Treasury.

Thank you for reading this post, if you have any queries please Email me, you can find my Email in the Contacts & Community section. Please also follow The Weekly Rambler on Twitter and Facebook which you can access through the buttons at the bottom of this website. You can also use the social media buttons under each blogpost to share with your family, friends and associates. You can also subscribe to Email notifications at the right-side of this website to know whenever a new post goes up (you can easily unsubscribe from this at any time through a button in each Email notification), or alternatively you can use an RSS Feed Reader. Please also join my FB Group The Weekly Ramblers Readers Group where readers can more easily talk with each other and also with me whenever I am on, you can also find it in Community.