Vice President Kamala Harris is on the brink of a possible presidential nomination following President Joe Biden’s decision not to seek re-election, the latest in a long political career, which began in the San Francisco Bay Area.
What are Kamala Harris’ roots in California?
Harris was born in Oakland in 1964 to immigrants from India and Jamaica. After moving to the Midwest, he returned with his sister and mother to the East Bay, living in Berkeley until he was 12, according to a city historian.
Harris was bused from his home in the West Berkeley flatlands to school in a more affluent neighborhood in North Berkeley as part of the city’s comprehensive desegregation program.
“I only learned later that we were part of a national experiment with desegregation with working-class black kids from the protected plains on one side and richer white kids from the Berkeley hills on the other,” Harris recounted in her memoir, ” The Truths We Hold: An American Journey.”
He will reference his experience when he famously sparred with former Vice President Joe Biden on desegregation during the 2019 Democratic presidential debate.
After graduating from high school in Montreal, Canada, where her mother worked as a breast cancer researcher, she attended Howard University in Washington, DC, the nation’s oldest black university. He graduated in 1986 with a degree in political science and economics.
Harris returned to the Bay Area where he earned his law degree at UC Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco in 1989. He was admitted to the California Bar in 1989.
Harris began his career as a prosecutor in the Bay Area
In 1990, Harris was hired as a deputy district attorney for Alameda County, where he served for several years and also served on two state boards. The appointment was made by California Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, with whom he had a brief affair. During that time, he made many connections that would help propel his political career forward.
In 1998, Harris became an assistant district attorney in San Francisco, prosecuting murder, sexual assault, burglary and robbery cases. Two years later, Harris began working for City Attorney Louise Renne, handling child abuse and neglect cases.
Renne endorsed Harris’ bid for San Francisco district attorney in 2002, the least-known race among three candidates that included the incumbent, her former boss, Terence Hallinan. Harris would win the 2003 runoff, becoming the first person of color elected as San Francisco’s district attorney. He was re-elected for a second term in 2007 after being unopposed.
As San Francisco’s top prosecutor, Harris established the city’s first environmental crimes unit, targeting pollution and crime that didn’t affect low-income communities. Harris also created a Hate Crimes Unit that focuses on crimes against LGBTQ+ children and youth in schools. He also officiated one of the first same-sex weddings in the city in 2004.
Harris also led anti-dumping efforts for public safety, noting that prison inmates and homicide victims were often absent. The program also targets parents who willfully allow truancy, and in 2008 Harris issued citations to six parents, the first time San Francisco prosecuted adults for chronic truancy.
Another program led by Harris provided opportunities for first-time drug offenders to earn a high school degree and find employment, which was later adopted by the US Department of Justice as a national innovation model for law enforcement.
California’s first female, Black and South Asian Attorney General
Before the end of his tenure as San Francisco District Attorney, Harris announced that he would run for California attorney general in 2010.
With her victory, she became the first woman, the first African-American and the first South Asian American to be elected attorney general in the country’s history.
Term as US senator from California
His political reign continued with one term as US Senator from California from 2017 to 2021. In that race, he defeated Rep. Loretta Sanchez of Orange County was then a Democrat to replace Sen. Barbara Boxer, who decided not to run. fifth term.
America’s first woman, Black and Asian American vice president
After running for president in 2020, he was chosen by Democratic Party candidate Biden as his running mate. That year’s election meant that Harris became the second first woman in the presidential line, as well as the first Black and Asian American vice president. She is the highest-ranking female government official in US history.
The Bay Area native is now less than four months away from learning whether voters will propel her to break through another glass ceiling and become the first woman elected president of the United States.
