NO REMORSE

Picture this

A candidate for the Democratic nomination is a US Senator from a state that is top five in population and has been elected to a statewide office three times.

Prior to taking the statewide plunge, this person graduated from a prestigious university with a double major in political science and economics. This person returned to their home state, graduated from law school, passed the bar exam, and ended up working in the district attorney’s office in a large city and was later elected as the district attorney for that city and county. People said that this person was “an able prosecutor on the way up.”

While as the district attorney, this person did everything they could to reduce prison recidivism rates such as providing counseling services, vocational training, and other social programs so that drug offenders can re-enter society.

The district attorney refused to pursue the death penalty and instead went with life in prison in a high-profile murder case. At the funeral for the murder victim, the district attorney was in attendance while the state’s senior US Senator used their eulogy to call for the death penalty.

This district attorney viewed underage victims of sex trafficking as such and instead went after those who perpetrated the crime against them.

This person wrote a book that takes a more precise and direct approach to crime fighting instead of the more draconian strategy of the tough on crime that has been the template for the last half century.

The district attorney established the first LGBT Hate Crime Unit in their city. This person supported same-sex marriages a decade before it was formally recognized nationally. As this person ascended to higher office, they worked with their state’s legislature to pass one of the country’s first repeal of the use of gay and trans panic defense.

This person was elected state attorney general in a favorable year for Republicans and a high-profile Republican operative was deployed to defeat them. Despite the Republican’s best efforts, this person won.

And then won again in another Republican wave year

This person was in charge of one the largest attorney general’s offices in the country that had more than 4,500 persons and an operating budget of over $700 million/year.

While as the state’s attorney general this person did what they could to reduce recidivism rates by taking what they implemented in their city and take it statewide. This person worked on ways on how to reduce juvenile conviction, one of them was to educate parents of consistently truant children on how not attending school was impacting their future prospects.

This person took on corporate America by winning huge settlements for homeowners who were scammed resulting in a homeowner’s bill of rights passing the state legislature, suing one the largest retailers for overcharging customers, taking on a car company for skirting the state’s stringent emissions laws, and for-profit colleges.

This person supported legislative bills that would reform the justice system such as addressing the rape kit backlog, advocating for victims of human trafficking, investigations into local police departments regarding their practices and standards of conduct, the first in the nation on training on procedural justice and implicit biases, and collecting data on officers shooting and using force on civilians that result in injury or death.

This person is currently one of 100 persons in the US Senate. As senator this person introduced and sponsored legislation that would legalize marijuana, expunge prior convictions, and require re-sentencing hearings for those under supervision. This legislation would invest money into communities that were impacted by the War on Drugs. This senator introduced legislation that would reform how women are treated in the federal prison system, end the use of cash bail, increase funding for the public defender’s office and reduce their work load, and limit the use of solitary confinement.

This candidate should be the prospective nominee for the Democratic Party in 2020 and is ready to announce their pick for vice-president.

You probably know who this person is, but in case you do not know, the person I’m describing is Senator Kamala Harris of California.

 

 

This is a small sample of her accomplishments (article compiled by Black Women Views, give her a Twitter follow and let your friends know) in Harris’ nearly 30 years beginning with her work in the Alameda County District Attorneys office followed by her election as San Francisco County Attorney in 2003, then as California Attorney General in 2010 (again, compiled by Black Women Views; seriously, stop reading this, give Black Women Views a follow, and then come back to reading this), and in 2016 being a rare bright spot that year in becoming the second of two black women ever elected to the US Senate.

Why do I admire Senator Harris?

She is the type of person who could finish writing a lengthy legal brief, get in a workout while listening to her favorite music, come home to make dinner for her family because she enjoys it, and then prepare for the next day while binge watching a TV show. On her days off, she brushes up on topics that she might be rusty on – both as a joy in the pursuit of knowledge as well as to stay on top so that she continues to amaze the people she works for which in her long career has been the people.

And she puts in that work every night.

Instead, there were questions about her identity despite that she attended Howard, a highly recognized HBCU given its proximity to the nation’s capital, and was a member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, the oldest of sorority of the Divine Nine.

If you wondered why so many women were at her events wearing pink and green, there is your answer.

Her relationship history was scrutinized. No one would have cared if Harris was a white guy which let’s be honest, if you did not know who I described in my lengthy setup, you assumed the person was a straight white guy like myself. I saw the disgusting comments on Twitter about how she slept her way to the top when she was in a relationship with former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown.

Brown confirmed that yes, the two did date and what was the big deal.

Exactly

Another issue was who her husband was, Douglas Emhoff. A white guy. Again, more questions about her identity. In case some of y’all didn’t know, interracial relationships existed long before Loving v. Virginia and because of that court case, they are allowed to be out in the open even if a very small minority of people personally disapprove.

Maybe some folks forgot about a baby born in Honolulu on 4 August 1961.

That baby grew up to be the 44th President of the United States that many of us wish was still in office but that 22nd Amendment said otherwise.

 

There were several circulated memes about her record as Attorney General of California that omits certain specific details or are outright lies.

Again, Black Women Views picks up the slack and counters those lies.

One such lie is the debunked mishandling of DNA in a murder case. For starters, it would require Harris to be the attorney general of California before January 2011, and the prisoner exhausted his court appeals in November 2009. The only recourse remaining is clemency which is granted by the governor. So far clemency has been asked to three governors, two have denied them. The previous governor, Jerry Brown, ordered new DNA testing in the case and the current governor, Gavin Newsome, expanded the testing early in his term. It is still ongoing to this day with no resolution in the case at this time.

The other is that she purposely locked up parents of truant children. First, truancy has been a prosecutable offense in California since 1977. Second, Harris decided to go after truancy when she discovered that nearly all homicide victims were high school drop outs. And Harris did not use punitive measures but rather provided resources and offered solutions to the parents to ensure that their children are in school.

The “she wasn’t a progressive prosecutor” was a line dropped by Lara Bazelon in a New York Times op-ed just days after Harris announced her bid for the presidency. It should be noted that Ms. Bazelon has spent her entire career talking about justice reforms from the university world while Senator Harris has actually been taking action to make those reforms happen. Bazelon also wrote this New York Times op-ed stating her support for one of Betsy DeVos’ reforms and defended the judge who imposed a 6-month sentence on a convicted rapist where the minimum required sentence was two years to a maximum of 14 years.

Bazelon appears to have changed her tune mainly due to that Harris is one of the, if not the, leading contender to be picked to join Joe Biden on the Democratic ticket.

Now it appears there are efforts to try to scuttle her bid to join Biden when she was interviewing for the job. Former Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd who is part of the Biden campaign’s search said that when he asked Harris about her questioning Biden in the June 2019 Democratic debate on working with senators opposing bussing, she laughed and replied, “that’s politics.” Dodd said that she showed no remorse about the line and had questions about her loyalty should she be Biden’s running mate.

I would have loved to listen in on the call between Harris’ allies and Dodd.

In her long political career, Harris has shown time and time again that she is more than qualified for the office she holds, and in the case of President, she was seeking.

We are lesser for her having to end her campaign prior to the primary contests. I was in a bit of mourning when she suspended her campaign because of what she meant to a lot of people who do not look like me. I enjoyed the enthusiasm she brought to the campaign as well as uplifting other candidates. It reminded me that running for president can be tough sledding but it doesn’t have to be mired in negativity and attacks. Harris was a bright spot in the same way that her senate win in 2016 was to counter a very dark evening.

I have no remorse in stating my support for Senator Kamala Harris as Joe Biden’s running mate. Despite all the negativity surrounding her from the peanut gallery who constantly doubt her, she is intelligent, well-prepared, ambitious, dedicated, joyful, and has proven her progressive bona fides.

Now, let’s go win this thing