• news
• World news
• America

The first U.S. deputy? The immigrant daughter who wants to continue making history

Kamla Harris, a former prosecutor and daughter of parents from India and Jamaica, resigned from the primaries after a media confrontation with Biden. But after the killing of George Floyd, the California senator led calls for social justice. She reconciled with the Democratic candidate, becoming the first black candidate for the post

• United States
• Kamla Harris
• Joe Biden

Reuters

Months after her presidential campaign collapsed amid rising concerns about her political identity, Kamla Harris suddenly and with full force found her voice - and by chance.

Harris, 55, is a California senator who will run alongside Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. She will be the first black and Asian woman to run for one of two major roles in the United States.

Her choice was not surprising. The United States is in the midst of a mental reckoning over its racist history, and Biden has been under increasing pressure to choose a non-white woman. Harris, who was overall the black senator in history when she was elected to the Senate in 2016, has always been at the top of Biden's list.

However, she did everything to keep a low profile until Biden made the decision last night. She has become an ardent supporter of police reform and social justice - in the Senate, on the streets and on the networks, as she confronts Republicans in the Senate and sharply attacks Republican President Donald Trump.

"She was very determined," said Mark Muriel, president of the National Urban League, a veteran organization for the promotion of civil rights and social justice worked with Harris on reforms. "She has the ability to get into a head-to-head confrontation with anyone."

For Harris, a former barrier-breaking plaintiff and former California Attorney General, this period formulated for her the purpose that was lacking in her failed Democratic Party campaign.

After a strong opening of the campaign, Harris quickly collapsed due to zigzags in her positions. At first she presented herself as a progressive candidate in the field that included radical senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, but later she went to the center. Her views on the health care system, for example, were messy. She retired as early as December, even before the first ballot in the Democratic primary.

"She tried a little bit to play at the center and tried to be everything to everyone," said Joel Payne, a Democratic strategic adviser who ran in Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign. Now, he says, "she already has a more defined voice. There is more clarity about her public figure."

Her background in law enforcement was perceived as a weakness at the start of the race. However, further action impressed some of the skeptics, who said she did not do enough to investigate police shooting incidents and too often sided with prosecutors in past wrongful convictions.

More on Walla! NEWS

The California prosecutor who beat Biden is dreaming of the White House

To the full article

In the days following the killing of George Floyd by a white cop in Minneapolis in May, Harris joined protesters on the streets of Washington. On Capitol Hill, along with Corey Boker, a black senator who himself was in the Democratic primaries, they motivated Democratic efforts to combat police violence, while at the same time opposing the reform proposed by the Republicans, which they called a "lip service."

She gained significant recognition earlier this month when Ben Cramp, the Floyd family's attorney, published an opinion piece in support of her candidacy.

"To me it's simple: she's been an agent of change at every level in government - local, state and federal - for 30 years," Cramp wrote in the days leading up to Biden's final decision.

Lara Bazlon, a professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law who attacked Harris last year for her past as a prosecutor and attorney general, said she had made an "important change" regarding criminal justice. She hopes she will lead the advice to Biden on the subject.

"She made a good, sharp turn to the left. I hope she takes advantage of the moment and resists the urge to return to safety and the center," she said.

While publicly advancing her struggle for social justice, Harris worked hard to establish her relationship with Biden. The two had a long friendship thanks to the closeness of Harris to Lou Biden, the late son of the former vice president who was Delaware's attorney general and worked with Harris when she was in that position in California.

However, the relationship between her and Biden Sr. was missed last year, when she slapped Biden on his past support for the obligation to transport students to public schools, which actually separated white and black students. Jill, Biden's wife, said at the time that it was a "punch in the stomach," and some of Biden's advisers described Harris' attack on him as an opportunistic move.

Since expressing her support for him in March, Harris has become one of Biden's most prominent supporters and has been an effective fundraiser for him. Biden told reporters this month that he put behind him the clash in that confrontation. "I do not hold a grudge," he said.