Who is 2020 vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris?
Sen. Kamala Harris will face Vice President Mike Pence on the debate stage Wednesday night. Here's a primer on her background, experience and where she stands on current issues.
Made in California
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Kamala Harris was born in Oakland, California, in 1964. Her mother was a breast cancer scientist who emigrated from India, and her father is a Stanford University economics professor who emigrated from Jamaica. After graduating high school in Canada, she attended the historically black Howard University in Washington, D.C. She then attended law school at University of California's Hastings College of Law in San Francisco and began her legal career in 1990. She worked as a prosecutor and served as the district attorney of San Francisco before becoming the first woman and first person of color elected as California attorney general in 2010.
Family history of politics
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Harris's younger sister, Maya, is also a lawyer as well as an activist, a political analyst for MSNBC and former adviser on Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. Both Kamala and Maya were inspired by their parents' political activism growing up. Their parents actually met at a civil rights rally at the University of California, Berkeley, and brought their children with them to civil rights rallies and demonstrations around the Bay Area. In college, Harris interned for the senior senator from California at the time, Alan Cranston, and she also worked on the Jesse Jackson presidential campaign in the 1980s. She credits her mother with giving her this life motto: "You may be the first, but make sure you're not the last."
A multicultural upbringing
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Kamala gets her name from the sanskrit word for lotus as well as a name for the Hindu goddess Lakshmi. She and Maya grew up attending both a black Baptist church and a Hindu temple. The sisters also traveled to meet their father's family in Jamaica and to India every two years with their mother. As for her own family, Harris married Los Angeles entertainment and intellectual-property lawyer Doug Emhoff in 2014. Maya officiated the ceremony. Harris says she is close with Emhoff's two college-age children, who call her their "S-Mamala."
Professional history
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Harris served as district attorney of San Francisco from 2004 to 2010. In 2004, she stood by her stance against capital punishment and chose not to pursue the death penalty for the murderer of police Officer Isaac Espinoza. As DA, Harris opposed anti-same sex measures Proposition 22 and Proposition 8, voiced her support of gay marriage and created a special Hate Crimes unit aimed at prosecuting hate crimes committed against LGBTQ children and teens in school. A spot on her tenure is her office being found guilty of prosecutorial misconduct in 2010 for hiding damaging information about a police drug lab technician that caused more than 600 drug cases to be dismissed.
From district attorney to attorney general
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After being narrowly elected, Harris served as the 32nd attorney general of California from 2011 to 2017. She instituted a statewide training program aimed at police officers confronting their racial biases so they can enforce laws fairly. Her department was the first statewide agency to adopt a body camera program. She attempted to shut down the online-classifieds website Backpage. And though she ran on a platform of criminal justice reform, Harris fought against the Supreme Court's 2011 mandated release of prisoners after finding that overcrowding in California's prisons had amounted to cruel and unusual punishment.
Notable cases as AG
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In 2012, Harris made a risky move. Against the advice of President Barack Obama and other state AGs, she backed out of an earlier settlement deal with five Wall Street banks to compensate homeowners harmed by improper foreclosure practices during the financial crisis. Instead of accepting their offer of $4 billion, she held out for a higher settlement, ultimately getting $20 billion instead. In 2016, she won a $1.1 billion settlement against the for-profit Corinthian Colleges for its predatory and unlawful practices.
Her road to Washington
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After Senate Democrat Barbara Boxer announced she would not seek re-election in 2016, Harris announce she was pursuing the open seat just a few days later. She handily beat Rep. Loretta Sanchez. After her election, she began serving on the Select Committee on Intelligence and the Judiciary Committee. Harris is the first black politician in history to represent California in the Senate, as well as the state's third female senator and the first of either Indian or Jamaican descent.
Many prospects
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Harris has been seen as a potential presidential candidate for more than a decade. In 2008, the New York Times named her among a number of women who could become president of the United States. In 2014, it was speculated that she was a potential candidate to be the next U.S. attorney general, and then in 2016, her name floated around various media outlets as a potential U.S. Supreme Court nominee to replace Justice Antonin Scalia.
Immigrant advocate
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Harris has a highly liberal, anti-Trump voting record and has been highly critical of the president's immigration policies, including the "zero tolerance" policy seperating children from their families at the border. After taking office in 2017, in her first speech on the senate floor, Harris, the child of immigrants, critiqued Trump's immigration policies and promised to advocate for immigrants and "Dreamers." After visiting a detention facility near San Diego, Harris said: "This is outrageous. This is clearly a crime against humanity that is being committed by the United States government and we have to stop it."
Opposed presidential appointments
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Harris voted against 18 of Trump's 22 original cabinet-level nominees, one of the highest "no" rates among Democratic senators. Among those she opposed were Jeff Sessions, Betsy DeVos and John Kelly. She also put her prosecutorial skills to use interrogating Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearing. Her style rubbed some people like former Trump campaign adviser Jason Miller the wrong way. Miller came under fire for describing her questioning of Sessions as "hysterical." However, she's generally seen as a formidable foe across the aisle. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said, "Anybody who underestimates her will do so at their own peril."
Other Washington actions
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Though her time in Washington has been short, Harris has made her political priorities known. She co-sponsored bills to help alleviate student loan debt, raise the federal minimum wage, sand top Arctic Ocean oil and gas drilling. She supports single-payer health care and free college tuition for families earning less than $140,000 a year. She has put forward bills to end the pay gap for black women and another to clarify the rights of people detained at the border. She also joined Kirsten Gillibrand in calling for Senator Al Franken to resign amid allegations of sexual misconduct.
Targeted by a domestic terrorist
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Harris was one of the 13 targets of the October 2018 United States mail bombing attempts. Sixteen packages containing pipe bombs were mailed to prominent critics of Donald Trump, including media outlet CNN and actor Robert De Niro. Harris was among the Democratic politicians who were targeted, including Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Maxine Waters and Cory Booker. The package sent to Harris was intercepted at a postal facility in Sacramento.
Flirting with running
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Harris has been flirting with the prospect of running in 2020 since fall 2018. She's sent funds and helped campaign for Democratic candidates ahead of midterm elections in four early nominating states: Iowa, South Carolina, Nevada and New Hampshire. Though she wouldn't say whether she was running herself, she told "The View" that she thought the country was "absolutely" ready for a female president of color. In what could be interpreted as another pre-run move, Harris released two books in January 2019: her memoir, "The Truths We Hold: An American Journey," and a children's book called "Superheroes Are Everywhere."
As featured on
Harris, a 55-year-old first-term senator, will be the first Black woman to compete on a major party's presidential ticket.
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