Vice President of the United States

A first generation American with Black and South Asian heritage, she was required by her school district to ride a bus to a distant elementary school to balance her new school’s racial statistics. 

She has said, “I grew up when (singer) Aretha Franklin was telling me I was young, gifted, and Black. I will tell you this, and maybe it’s a radical notion. I have never believed that I don’t belong somewhere, and I was raised to believe that I belong anywhere that I choose to go.”

Demonstrating early interest in protecting the rights of women and children, she commenced her adult career path as a prosecutor, followed by respected government service at several levels, culminating – so far – as the first female and minority to serve as Vice President of the United States. 

FAMILY BACKGROUND

Kamala Devi Harris (KH) was born in Oakland, California. Her mother was a biologist, who came to the U.S. from India as a 19-year-old graduate student in nutrition and endocrinology at the U of California, Berkeley (UCB) where she earned her PhD. Her mother’s eventual work on the progesterone receptor gene stimulated advances in breast cancer research.

Her father was born in Jamaica, of African and Irish ancestry. He arrived in the U.S. from British Jamaica for graduate study at UCB, where he met his eventual wife / mother of KH, while earning his PhD in economics. He later became a Professor of Economics. 

CHILDHOOD

When KH began kindergarten, she was bused from her home area to a different neighborhood school as part of Berkeley’s comprehensive racial desegregation program. Her new elementary school, previously attended by 95% White students, soon enrolled 40% Black students. 

A neighbor regularly took the Harris children to an African American church in Oakland, where they sang in the children’s choir, The girls and their mother also frequently visited a nearby African American cultural center. Their mother introduced them to Hinduism (India’s majority religion) and took them to a nearby Hindu temple.

KH was raised in the Bay Area of San Francisco, amid the ‘Black Power’ movement of the 1960s and 1970s. 

KH has said that she has been strongly influenced by her maternal grandfather, a retired Indian civil servant whose progressive views on democracy and women’s rights impressed her. She has remained in touch with her Indian aunts and uncles throughout her adult life, plus visiting her father’s family in Jamaica. 

KH’s parents divorced when she was 7. When she and her sister visited their father in Palo Alto on weekends, KH recalls that other children in the neighborhood were not allowed to play with them because the Harris sisters were Black. 

When KH was 12, she and her sister moved with their mother to Montreal, Canada so her mother could accept a research and teaching position at a university-affiliated hospital. Thus, KH attended a French-speaking primary school. During these years, a friend of KH reported being sexually molested by the friend’s father, so the friend was invited to live with the Harris family. KH notes this experience helped to form her commitment to protect women and children when she later served as a government prosecutor.

Says KH, “I grew up when (singer) Aretha Franklin was telling me I was young, gifted, and Black. I will tell you this, and maybe it’s a radical notion. I have never believed that I don’t belong somewhere, and I was raised to believe that I belong anywhere that I choose to go.”

A professional journalist who has closely followed KH’s career and interviewed KH at length, has concluded that “She wears her self-belief with pride. And she always has, according to family members who attend her Sunday dinners and childhood friends who grew up with her.” 

Recalled a classmate, “I remember when we were in middle school just sitting on the bed, and she walked me through her name, letter by letter. She was very clear about her heritage, where her mother was from and what it meant. She’s always been one of those people who’s like, ‘This who I am. Deal with it.’”

EDUCATION

Following high school graduation, KH attended Howard University, a member of the ‘HBCU’ group (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) in the Washington, D.C. area. She graduated with a degree in political science and economics and then returned to California to attend law school at the University of California, through its Legal Education Opportunity Program (LEOP). 

While at law school, KH served as President of the Black Law Students Association, graduating with a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree, promptly passing the California Bar exam to be licensed to practice law in that state. 

FIRST ADULT JOBS WITHIN LAW AND LAW ENFORCEMENT

As soon as KH passed the Bar exam, she was hired as a deputy district attorney in Alameda County, California, where she was soon described as “an able prosecutor on the way up.” Later, KH was appointed to the state Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board and subsequently to the California Medical Assistance Commission. While serving on those board positions, KH took a leave of absence from her prosecution career but after a few months, was recruited to join the San Francisco district attorney’s office, where she became the chief of the Career Criminal Division, supervising five other attorneys while she personally prosecuted homicide, burglary, robbery, and sexual assault cases, particularly ‘three-strikes’ cases. 

Editor’s note – “Three strikes’ refers to laws requiring that a person who is convicted of a serious offense (most likely a felony) and who has two other previous convictions for serious crimes, must serve a mandatory life sentence in prison, with or without possible later parole, depending on the jurisdiction. The phrase originated in baseball, where after three strikes, the umpire may say “Three strikes… and you’re out!” 

After clashing with a fellow prosecutor over whether to try some juvenile defendants in adult court rather than exclusively within juvenile court (KH opposed the use of adult court for juveniles), she quit and joined a city agency, running its Family and Children’s Services Division representing child abuse and neglect cases. 

CITY DISTRICT ATTORNEY

During her campaign for election as San Francisco’s District Attorney, KH pledged never to seek the death penalty and to prosecute three-strike offenders only in cases of violent felonies. She claimed the present D.A. had not done enough to stem the city’s gun violence, particularly in poor neighborhoods and attacked his willingness to accept plea bargains in cases of domestic violence. She won with 56% of the vote, becoming the first person of color elected as D.A. for the city. 

After being reelected city D.A., KH created an environmental crimes unit. Her office prosecuted marijuana related crimes but when possession was the only underlying fact, she never pursued incarceration. Within several years of taking office, KH’s prosecution teams achieved an 87% conviction rate for homicides and a 90% conviction rate for all felony gun violations. She pushed for higher bail in gun-related crimes and created a Hate Crimes unit, focusing on hate crimes against LGBT children and teens in schools. 

KH supported opposition to gun shows and separately, to the death penalty. When an illegal immigrant and alleged MS-13 gang member was accused of murdering a man and his two sons, a U.S. Senator and San Francisco’s Mayor and the city’s police officers’ association urged KH to push for the death penalty, but she refused, which perhaps coincidentally, was consistent with a poll of 70% of local voters.

STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL 

KH was next urged by political supporters to seek the elected post of Attorney General of California. She announced her intent to run, two years before the election, but only if the current AG did not seek re-election to that post. When he decided to run for Governor, KH consolidated her support and won the primary among three candidates. The general election was close but after a protracted period of counting mail-in and provisional ballots, her opponent conceded, and Harris was sworn in as the new state Attorney General. Four years later, KH was reelected with 57.4% of the vote. 

A major early initiative for KH’ AG office was the creation of the Mortgage Fraud Strike Force in the wake of the recent U.S. foreclosure crisis. She 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 Med-Cal and federal Medicare payments. 

In 2012, KH leveraged California’s economic clout to obtain better terms in the National Mortgage Settlement against the nation’s five largest mortgage servicers: JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, and Ally Bank, all accused of illegally foreclosing on homeowners. After dismissing an initial offer of $2-4 billion in relief for California, KH withdrew from negotiations. Then the financial institutions’ offer was increased to $18.4 billion in debt relief and $2 billion in other financial assistance for California homeowners. 

Other KH initiatives for the AG include:

* Creating the ‘Homeowner Bill of Rights’ and pursuing financial recoveries for the state’s public employee and teachers’ pensions based upon various financial giants’ misrepresentations in the sale of mortgage-backed securities, which produced recoveries of $193 M from Citigroup, $210 M from S&P, $300 M from JP Morgan Chase, and over $500 M from Bank of America. 

* Persuading tech giants Apple, Amazon, Google, HP, Microsoft, Research in Motion and Facebook to mandate that apps sold in their stores display prominent privacy policies informing users what private information they were sharing and with whom.  

* Settled a customer privacy invasion claim against Comcast for $33 million. 

* Coordinated with several state counties to create a program to reduce crimes recidivism and promote re-entry into society for first time, non-violent, non-sexual offenders between ages 18 and 30. 

* Opposed state laws banning marriage other than between a man and a woman. 

* Considering a truancy rate for elementary students at nearly 30%, at a cost of nearly $1.4 billion to school districts whose funding was based on attendance rates, KH urged criminal penalties for parents of truant children, allowing the court to defer judgment if the parent agreed to a mediation period to get their child back in school. 

* Prioritized environmental protection by securing millions of dollars to cover the cost of cleaning up various oil spills and fines for attempted cheating emission standards. 

* Cooperated with Planned Parenthood in investigating an anti-abortion activist. 

Looking back on her career as a prosecutor, KH wrote a book, “Smart on Crime.” She said that she “came up with the phrase, (proposing) we should ask, ‘Are we smart on crime? And in asking that question, measure our effectiveness like how the private sector does.” 

U.S. SENATOR

When a long serving (20 years) U.S. Senator (Barbara Boxer) declined to run for reelection, KH announced her candidacy for the Senate a week later (Editor – obviously, KH had been privately alerted in advance through her political network, who wanted to replace the retiring female Senator with another female and by now, KH had developed respect within her political party for her accomplishments and had gained sufficient public recognition to be a strong candidate for election). 

Following her victory in the Democrat primary election, KH was endorsed in the general state election by then President Obama and Vice President Biden. (Editor’s note – As the public would later learn during her campaign as Biden’s Vice-Presidential choice, KH had worked closely with Biden’s son, Beau, on issues common to many Democrat elected state Attorneys General and Beau had highly recommended KH to his father for consideration as the elder Biden’s Presidential running mate. Here we see the importance of gaining respect within your political network.)

KH won the election to the U.S. Senate with over 60% of the statewide vote. Notable events during KH’s service as a U.S. Senator include: 

• Opposing President Trump’s delay of immigrants from Muslim-majority countries – known as the “Muslim Ban.”
• Called on Trump’s Attorney General Sessions to resign after his contact with the Russian U.N. ambassador.
• Drew criticism by using her prosecutorial experience to forcefully question a deputy attorney general during a Senate hearing involving the firing of FBI director Comey.
• Called for the resignation of a fellow Democrat Senator over allegations of his sexual harassment of staff and supporters.
• After visiting a U.S. border detention facility, called for the resignation of the Homeland Security Secretary over the Trump administration’s policy of separating migrant children from their parents.
• Sponsored a bill leading to passage of the ‘Justice for Victims of Lynching Act’.
• Accused Trump’s Attorney General Barr of issuing misleading conclusions regarding the Mueller Report of Russian involvement in Trump’s election.
• Voted to impeach President Trump for 2020 election interference.
• Worked on bipartisan bills with Republican co-sponsors including bail reform with Senator Paul, election security with Senator Lankford and workplace harassment with Senator Murkowski

VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

Despite clashing with fellow Presidential candidate Biden during election debates, ultimately KH withdrew from the campaign and was endorsed by fellow Presidential candidate Biden to be his Vice President. 

She considers herself neither a ‘moderate’ nor a ‘progressive’ but ‘ideologically pragmatic. I’m not really into labels.” Noted a close friend, “She’s a Christian, but strength is her religion.”

Following the 2020 election victory of the Biden Harris ticket (forever denied by losing candidate Trump, since charged criminally with election obstruction), KH was sworn in as Vice President of the United States on January 20, 2021, becoming the first female vice president, the highest-ranking female elected official in U.S. history and the first African American and first Asian-American vice president. 

Notable events involving Vice President Harris include:

• Tying – with John C. Calhoun from more than a century ago – the record for casting the most tie-breaking votes by a V.P. in Senate history. However, Harris did this in less than four years while Calhoun needed the full 8 years of his vice presidency. 
• Close involvement with the president’s most important decisions – e.g. Biden’s decision to remove U.S. troops from the Middle East; National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said that Biden “insists she be in every core decision-making meeting. She weighs in during those meetings, often providing unique perspectives.”
• Tasked by the president to reduce the number of unaccompanied minors and adult asylum seekers hoping to immigrate, leading to travel to central America to meet with those countries’ leaders.
• Met with the French President to strengthen ties following a disagreement over cancellation of an important mutual program involving submarines.
• Served as Acting President when the president underwent a medical procedure.

While politicians are always subject to criticism from political opponents, KH is proud of her efforts – often ‘behind the scenes’ to support President Biden’s agenda. Said KH, “I spent the majority of my career (to date) as a prosecutor. (As Vice President, I’ve) not been focused on giving lovely speeches or trying to pass a (legislative) bill. And so that’s how I approach public policy. I’m probably oriented to think about, ‘What does this actually mean’ as opposed to how does this just sound?”

The President’s Chief of Staff, Jeff Zients, has said that Harris and Biden enjoy a close relationship and that she is often the last to leave the Oval Office after a meeting. “She has an uncanny ability to really drill down to what matters, clear out what doesn’t matter and hold people accountable for results. She can prosecute a case extremely well. In a meeting, she will say ‘But no, really, is that going to work? Or ‘Oh, really, explain this’ and she’s very effective. And it’s interesting to watch them together. Because sometimes it’s almost like, she’ll ask something, and he will look at her like, ‘That’s exactly what I would have said.’

CAREER SATISFACTION

A seasoned political observer has noted that KH is not inclined to share publicly any details about her life, family, and career motivations, despite being urged to do so by political advisors. Noted the observer, “Often in the White House, national leaders have to base their arguments on emotion and gut- and as a prosecutor that’s not the job. So, she’s getting more comfortable speaking about herself, her beliefs, and the president’s beliefs – answering the ‘why’ questions of what they do, not just what the policy is.”

Speaking about her job as Vice President of the U.S., KH has said, “I love my job. There are certain opportunities that come only with a position like being vice president of the United States to uplift the voices of the people in a way that I think matters and makes a difference.”

KH has received the highest honor awarded by the National Black Prosecutors Association. She has also been included in a Newsweek magazine’s report profiling “20 of American’s Most Powerful Women.” 

A 2008 NY Times article identified KH as a woman with potential to become president of the United States, highlighting her reputation as a “tough fighter.”

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This career story is based on several sources including a news article written by Astead W. Herndon, published by The New York Times on October 22, 2023, plus internet research including Wikipedia