Joe Biden has chosen Kamala Harris to be his running mate, making the California senator the first nominated black vice president. She is also the first South Asian American to be nominated for a presidential card, and only the third woman nominated for vice president.
Harris also ran for the Democratic nomination for president, but she fell out of the race in December and signed Biden in March. Harris, 55, is currently the only Black woman serving in the Senate.
Early life
Kamala Devi Harris was born on October 10, 1964 in Oakland, California. Her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, was a Tamil breast cancer scientist who emigrated from India in 1960 to pursue a doctorate in endocrinology from the University of California, Berkeley. Her father, Donald Harris, emigrated from Jamaica in 1961 to study at UC Berkeley and was a professor at Stanford University. She has a younger sister, Maya, who is now a close political adviser.
Gopalan died in 2009 of colon cancer. Harris would often refer to her mother while she was on the campaign trail, and quoted quotes from her mother in her speeches. “My mom would always say, ‘Kamala, you can be the first to do a lot of things, make sure you’re not the last,'” Harris often said.
Harris earned her undergraduate degree from Howard University, where she earned a degree member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. Her sorority, known as AKA, has a influential political network. Harris received her law degree from the University of California, Hastings College of Law in San Francisco.
Career
Harris’ long career as a prosecutor may be a boon for Biden, though critics have raised concerns about her record as a district attorney and attorney general in California. After graduating in 1990, Harris was hired as an alternate attorney in Alameda County, California. She also served on the Unemployment Insurance Appeal Board and later the California Medical Assistance Commission.
In 1998, she was hired as an assistant district attorney in San Francisco. Two years later, she joined the city government of San Francisco in the city’s attorney’s office, where she manages the Family and Children’s Services Department. Harris was elected district attorney in 2003 after a controversial race against Terence Hallinan, who initially recruited her to the district attorney’s office. Harris served as San Francisco district attorney until 2010, when she won the race to become state attorney general.
Critics of Harris say she did not do enough when Attorney General did reduce California’s prison population or investigate police shootings. They also point to their plate about holding high sentences for misconceptions. Harris, however, states that she was hard on gangs and smugglers, but also promoted some progressive programs such as job training for low-level offenders.
Harris was elected to the Senate in 2016 after the seat was vacated by retiree Senator Barbara Boxer. As a member of the influential Senate and Intelligence Commissioners, Harris has raised her profile by grilling Trump administration nominees, such as Brett Kavanaugh. However, Harris also collaborated with Republican senators on legislation, and was praised Judicial Commission chairman Lindsey Graham as “smart” and “difficult.”
Sy announced that she is running for president on January 21, 2019, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and her campaign logo was inspired by Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman to run for president nearly five decades ago. She drew more than 20,000 at her kick-off campaign in late January and was considered a top-tier candidate. She got a boost from her debate attack on Biden over busing, but within days, her opinion on the subject was muddled.
And Harris changed her position on Medicare for All during the presidential campaign. Although she was a sponsor of Senator Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All bill in the House of Representatives in 2017, she deviated from that position on the campaign track. Unlike Sanders, Harris did not call for the elimination of private insurance completely. Their campaign proposed a system whereby people could either buy plans from government-run Medicare or Medicare plans from private companies.
After wrestling with fundraising, she ended their presidential campaign in December 2019, before votes were cast. “I’m not a billionaire. I can not finance my own campaign,” she said. “And as the campaign went on, it got harder and harder to raise the money we needed to compete.”
Although she has been criticized by some progressives for her time as attorney general, Harris has largely relied on progressive bills in the Senate. Together with the Congressional Black Caucus and Senator Cory Booker, she is a co-sponsor of the comprehensive bill on police reform called the ‘Justice In Policing Act of 2020’ which passed in the Second Chamber in June.
Personal life
Harris married Doug Emhoff in 2014. Emhoff has two children from a previous marriage, whom Harris calls “Momala”. Emhoff is a lawyer who focuses on disputes over entertainment, sports and complex matters, business matters and intellectual property rights.
.
