Joe Biden has chosen Kamala Harris as his pick for Vice President. She will be the third woman to have been honored as such and the first woman of color. In the past, Harris has served in the Senate as its first Indian-American and second woman of color. She was also a district attorney general and eventually the Attorney General of California. Despite this seemingly impressive record of public service, there are several problems with her tenure in those positions.
As the California AG, she declined to support ballot initiatives that would have abolished the death penalty, which led many to question her consistency on issues, especially considering that she later came out in favor of getting rid of the death penalty. Further, she also tried to hush the fact that a technician had stolen cocaine from the crime lab, which subsequently led to around a thousand drug-related cases being thrown out. Perhaps her worst misstep was making truancy, the act of being absent from school without an excuse, a misdemeanor and punishing parents for not sending those children to school. Critics say she should’ve recognized the measure as over-punishing and potentially dangerous to the children and to the parents, who might not have been able to afford bail. The program coincided with an increase in school attendance but there is not strong evidence to suggest the bill was the cause.
However, Harris’ time as a prosecutor has come in handy during several Trump Administration confirmation hearings, including her grilling of Supreme Court Nominee (and alleged rapist) Brett Kavanaugh. She also displayed the same tenacity in the early Presidential debates, with much of her scathing criticism being directed towards Biden, with whom she is now running. It will be interesting to see how the pair respond to questions about those exchanges.
Harris is not quite as moderate as many of her critics would have the public believe. She is no stranger to progressive legislation, as seen in her attempts at police reform as well as her (admittedly clunky but well-intentioned) LIFT Act, which gave working class families a boost of up to 500 dollars in tax credits. It could be described as a watered down version of Andrew Yang’s Universal Basic Income (UBI), which was Yang’s signature proposal that aimed to give every American adult 1000 dollars every month. Furthermore, she supports the legalization of marijuana and as a result, she may be able to bring Biden closer to her point of view on that issue (he supports decriminalization). To conclude, Kamala Harris is not the perfect progressive running mate that the left hoped for, but she also isn’t the elitist cop that many make her out to be.
There is fair praise and criticism of Kamala at the moment, but none of this really seems to be made by those on the right. Plenty of Fox News hosts and correspondents have been resorting to sexist dog whistles about her being “too ambitious” (which is strange considering that you don’t get into politics without being ambitious). President Trump’s main criticism of her was that she was “nasty” to Brett Kavanaugh during the hearings. Although it is understandable why the President would be frightened, his recent propagation of another racist and conspiratorial “birther” remark about Harris is just despicably low.
Ultimately, it’s unlikely that Kamala is going to hurt Biden. While she remains relatively unpopular with progressives, there would have been little that would have had a large impact with progressives aside from the nomination of Elizabeth Warren. Harris is an energetic campaigner that will provide Biden with a governing partner who will be fair but firm in her convictions. Thus, it seems that this pick is fair.
However, I doubt that she will be the future of the party, as it is quickly shifting to the left. Unless she changes many of her positions (which would then likely be seen as opportunism), I can’t see her beating out more progressive candidates. Thus, Harris seems to be a solid pick for Biden, but perhaps a short-sighted one, as it seems likely that she will be a leader for the immediate future, not a standard-bearer to take the party forward.