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VOTERS GUIDE General Election, November 3, 2020

Kamala D. Harris

Kamala D. Harris is running for United States Vice President

Kamala D. Harris

KAMALA D. HARRIS

Democratic

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s selection of Kamala Harris to be his running mate was historic, but also considered to be within the Democratic Party mainstream.

Harris, 55, has climbed her way toward the top with a career as a prosecutor, attorney general and, since 2016, California’s junior senator. Two years into her Senate term, she declared for the presidency but later dropped out.

She’s a trailblazer in her own right — she was the first Black district attorney of San Francisco, the first woman attorney general in California, and the second Black woman in the U.S. Senate. Biden has made her the first Black, first South Asian and third woman vice presidential candidate.

And with a victory, she also she would be the first vice president who isn’t a white man.

Born to parents from Jamaica and India who met at the University of California, Berkeley, Harris graduated from Howard University and the University of California’s Hastings College of the Law and began her career in Alameda County and San Francisco’ district attorney’s offices.

After she made friends in the political establishment — she dated State Assembly Speaker Willie Brown — she won her first election as San Francisco’s district attorney and eight years later squeaked out a win for California attorney general.

Harris has come under some criticism for her career as a prosecutor. As San Francisco’s district attorney, she chose not to pursue the death penalty against a convicted cop killer. As attorney general, she declined to back two ballot initiatives to ban the death penalty.

As attorney general, Harris notched an achievement by refusing to sign a deal in the national mortgage settlement in the foreclosure crisis, turning down $4 billion, and instead securing $20 billion for California homeowners.

As a senator since 2017, Harris has developed a high profile for a first-term member, largely through her work as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

She drew national attention with her grilling of Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court, a role she could reprise in a hearing on the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett as a justice.

Harris has sought to shift to the left in Democratic politics — she backs federal decriminalization of marijuana after taking a hard-line on it as a prosecutor, and she signed on to Medicare for All before coming up with her own plan.

Police unions oppose her and protesters seeking sweeping criminal justice reform appear to be uncertain about Harris’ record, despite her role in writing the Justice in Policing Act. But her background could help Biden with more moderate voters.

Celebrating Women's History Month at Newsday A winemaker. A jockey. An astronaut. We're celebrating Women's History month with a look at these and more female changemakers and trailblazers with ties to long Island. 

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