Kamala Harris

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Kamala Devi Harris is an American politician and attorney who is the 49th and current vice president of the United States since 2021, serving with President Joe Biden. She is the first female vice president, making her the highest-ranking female official in U.S. history, as well as both the first African American and the first Asian American vice president. Harris is the Democratic Party's nominee for president in the 2024 election. She served in the United States Senate from 2017 to 2021 as the junior senator from California, and earlier as the attorney general of California.

Born in Oakland, California, Harris graduated from Howard University and the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. She began her law career in the office of the district attorney of Alameda County, before being recruited to the San Francisco DA's Office and later the city attorney of San Francisco's office. In 2003, she was elected DA of San Francisco. She was elected attorney general of California in 2010 and reelected in 2014. Harris was the first woman, African American, and Asian American to hold these offices in the state's history.

Harris served as the junior U.S. senator from California from 2017 to 2021. She defeated Loretta Sanchez in the 2016 Senate election to become the second Black woman and the first South Asian American to serve in the U.S. Senate. As a senator, Harris advocated for stricter gun control laws, the DREAM Act, federal legalization of cannabis, and reforms to healthcare and taxation. She gained a national profile for her pointed questioning of Trump administration officials during Senate hearings, including Trump's second Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh.AG Harris reports 101 gang members arrested in Los Banos, California. Harris's office supervised significant investigations and prosecutions aimed at transnational criminal organizations for their involvement in violent crime, fraud schemes, drug trafficking, and smuggling throughout her stint as attorney general. Harris struck an agreement with Mexican attorney general Marisela Morales in 2012 to better coordinate law enforcement resources aimed at transnational gangs selling and trafficking human people across the San Ysidro border crossing.



Harris at Howard University in 2017 Harris got a doctor of laws from the University of Southern California on May 15, 2015. She made a commencement speech following the Doctor of Humane Letters she got from Howard University on May 13, 2017.

Senatorial Election in the United States Main article: 2016 United States Senate election in California Senate campaign emblem

The formal Senate picture of Harris Senator Barbara Boxer declared on January 13, 2015, that she would not be running for reelection in 2016 after more than 20 years serving as a U.S. senator from California. The next week Harris declared her candidature for the Senate seat. From the start of her run, she was a top contender.

Using California's new top-two primary system, whereby the top two candidates in the primary progress to the general election independent of party, the 2016 California Senate election Harris earned 78% of the California Democratic Party vote at the party convention on February 27, 2016, therefore enabling her campaign to get financial backing from the party. Governor Jerry Brown backed her three months later. Harris came in first in the June 7 primary with 40% of the vote and won with pluralities in most of the counties. In the main election Harris ran against fellow Democrat Loretta Sanchez as congresswoman. Since California started directly selecting senators in 1914, this was the only instance a Republican failed to show up in a general election for the Senate.

On July 19, Vice President Joe Biden and President Barack Obama backed Harris. With almost 60% of the vote, Harris defeated Sanchez in the November 2016 election carrying all but four counties. She promised to defend immigrants against the plans of President-elect Donald Trump following her triumph and declared her intention to serve Attorney General until the end of 2016. Harris rose to become the first South Asian American senator in history, second Black woman.

Tenure and political postings See also Kamala Harris's political views. Harris supported the DREAM Act, federal legalization of cannabis, tougher gun control legislation, healthcare and tax reforms while a senator. Following questions of several Trump appointments, including Jeff Sessions and Brett Kavanaugh, she gained national recognition.

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2015

In December 2017, meeting with DREAMers She denounced Executive Order 13769, which Trump issued on January 28 prohibiting citizens of six Muslim-majority nations from entering the U.S. for 90 days, and was among many others to label as a 'Muslim ban'. She gathered facts and challenged the executive order by phoning White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly at home.

Harris commented in opposition to Trump's cabinet selections in February, calling Betsy DeVos Secretary of Education and Jeff Sessions United States Attorney General unacceptable. She called on Sessions to resign in early March following reports that Session, who had earlier claimed he 'did not have communications with the Russians', spoke twice with Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak.

On January 3, 2017, vice president Joe Biden personally swore Harris into the Senate. Harris voted in April against Neil Gorsuch's confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court. She visited California troops stationed in Iraq and the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan, the biggest camp for Syrian refugees on her first foreign trip to the Middle East later that month.

Harris attracted public attention in June for challenging Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, on his involvement in the May 2017 firing of James Comey, the Federal Bureau of Investigative director. Her questioning's prosecutorial character led Senator John McCain, an ex officio member of the Intelligence Committee, and Senator Richard Burr, the committee chairman, to interrupt her and ask that she treat the witness more respectfully. One week later she asked Jeff Sessions, the attorney general, about the same subject. Sessions claimed her asking 'makes me nervous.' Burr's singling out of Harris spurred rumors among the news media that his actions were sexist, with analysts contending Burr would not treat a male Senate colleague in a like-minded manner.

Harris urged Senator Al Franken to resign in December, writing on Twitter, 'Sexual harassment and misconduct should not be allowed by anyone and should not occur anywhere.'

2018 year After Franken left, Harris was named to the Senate Judiciary Committee in January. She asked Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen later that month about her preference for Norwegian immigration over others and her denial of knowing Norway is a mostly white nation.

Under which children were kept apart from their families while their parents were taken into custody for unlawfully entering the United States, Harris angrily questioned Nielsen in May on the Trump administration family separation policy. Harris became the first senator to call for Nielsen's resignation in June following a visit to one of the holding centers close to San Diego.

Harris, invited to speak by John Lewis, during the 2018 Selma Bloody Sunday memorials Harris asked Brett Kavanaugh about a discussion he might have had about the Mueller Investigation with a member of Kasowitz Benson Torres, the law firm established by Donald Trump's personal attorney, during the September and October Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court confirmation hearings Kavanaugh kept dodging and failed to respond. Harris also questioned the FBI director's narrow probe of Kavanaugh on claims of sexual assault, therefore challenging her authority. She cast a vote against his confirmation.

Target of the October 2018 US mail bombing campaigns was Harris.

Sponsored by Harris, the Senate voted the Justice for Victims of Lynching Act in December The measure, which perished in the House, would have made lynching a federal hate crime.

2019:

Harris discussing in 2019

Harris in the San Francisco Pride march of 2019 Declaring, 'the schools of America are as segregated, if not more segregated, today than when I was in elementary school,' Harris backed busing for desegregation of public schools. She saw busing as a choice open to school systems, not as a federal government obligation.

Early co-sponsor of the Green New Deal, a scheme to move the nation toward 100 percent renewable energy by 2030, Harris

Following Special Counsel Robert Mueller's findings on Russian meddling in the 2016 election, Harris demanded U.S. Attorney General William Barr to come before Congress in the name of openness in March 2019. Two days later, Barr published a four-page 'summar'y of the filtered Mueller Report, which drew criticism for its intentional misreading of its findings. Harris was one of twelve Democratic senators under Mazie Hirono's direction who signed a letter challenging Barr's offer of 'his own conclusion that the President's behavior did not amount to obstruction of justice,' and demanded an inquiry into whether Barr's summary of the Mueller Report and remarks during a news conference were accurate.

Barr gave evidence before the Senate Judiciary Committee on May 1, 2019. He stayed stubborn about the distortions in the four-page summary he had sent ahead of the official publication during the hearing. Harris asked Barr whether he had looked at the underlying data before deciding not to prosecute Trump with obstruction of justice. Barr said that neither Rod Rosenstein, nor anyone else in his staff had done. Later on, Harris demanded Barr to step down, charging him with not responding to her inquiries as he could be prone to perjury and stating his answers disqualified him from being U.S. attorney general. Two days later, Harris insisted once more that the Department of Justice inspector general Michael E. Horowitz look at whether Barr complied with White House efforts to look at Trump's political rivals.

Harris claimed 'voter suppression' stopped Democrats Stacey Abrams and Andrew Gillum from winning the 2018 gubernatorial elections in Georgia and Florida; Abrams lost by 55,000 votes and Gillum by 32,000. 'I have found no good evidence that the suppressive effects of severe voting and registration restrictions altered the outcome of the governor's races in Georgia and Florida,' says specialist in election law Richard L. Hasen.

Harris collaborated with Kirsten Gillibrand in July to demand the Trump government look at Chinese Communist Party persecution of Uyghurs in China; Senator Marco Rubio supported her in this regard.

Harris demanded a look of the death of transgender immigrant Roxsana Hernandez under ICE detention in November.

Harris led a group of Democratic senators and civil rights organizations in December in demanding the removal of White House senior adviser Stephen Miller following emails released by the Southern Poverty Law Center exposing regular promotion of white nationalist literature to Breitbart website editors.

2020:

Harris among women from Congress Black Caucus Harris expressed her opinions on the integrity of the American judicial system and the idea that nobody, including an incumbent president, is above the law on the floor of the Senate prior to the impeachment trial of Donald Trump commencing on January 16, 2020. Later on, she requested Lindsey Graham, head of Senate Judiciary, to stop all judicial nominations throughout the impeachment process; Graham complied. Harris cast a vote to find Trump guilty on allegations of Congress obstruction and abuse of authority.

Harris's sister, Maya, is a lawyer and MSNBC political analyst; her brother-in-law, Tony West, is general counsel of Uber and a former United States Department of Justice senior official. Her niece, Meena, is the founder of the Phenomenal Women Action Campaign and former head of strategy and leadership at Uber.

• Black women in American politics



• List of African-American United States Cabinet members



• List of African-American United States Senate candidates



• List of African-American United States senators



• List of female state attorneys general in the United States



• List of female United States Cabinet members



• List of female United States presidential and vice presidential candidates



• List of United States politicians of Indian descent



• List of United States senators from California



• Women in the United States Senate