What Kamala Harris’ years as a prosecutor tell us about her

Throughout her law enforcement career, Harris’ allies sought to portray her as a “progressive prosecutor” committed to criminal justice reform but also tough on crime.

It was a fine line to walk in a liberal city in the nation’s largest left-wing state, and one that critics on both sides of the political spectrum failed to adhere to.

As prosecutor, she employed a so-called “smart-on-crime” philosophy, which included initiatives to keep non-violent offenders out of prison by steering them to job training programs and ensuring young offenders stayed in school.

Niki Solis, an attorney with the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office who worked opposite Harris in the early 2000s, said she was sensitive to her concerns about how young victims of sex trafficking were charged with prostitution, rather than treated as victims.

“I realized that she understood issues that many of her predecessors and many (district attorneys) across the state did not understand or even acknowledge,” Ms. Solis said.

Trump and his allies on the right have tried to play a role in her career this time, portraying her as part of a “liberal San Francisco elite.” But on the left of politics she has been accused of not being reformist enough, with some on social media nicknamed her ‘Kamala the Cop’.

But by the time Harris was elected attorney general of California in 2010, her progressive leanings seemed to have given way to political pragmatism.

“She was looking for more national profile. She wanted to impress. There was definitely an expectation of an interesting future,” said Gil Duran, who worked for Harris in the attorney general’s office for a few months.

“The attorney general’s office — usually a sleepy corner of an office — was now home to a rising star.”

On the national stage, Harris began to make her mark. In 2012, in the wake of the global financial crisis, Harris threatened to abandon negotiations for a financial settlement between the attorneys general and five U.S. banks. California was set to receive about $4 billion in the original deal, with Harris ultimately securing $18 billion for the state.

The Harris campaign highlighted the case during the campaign as evidence that it is willing to stand up to powerful interests.

But more recent reporting shows that only $4.5 billion of the settlement ultimately went to California homeowners who had been defrauded by lenders.

In moves that angered some liberals, she instituted a statewide truancy program that some prosecutors used to arrest parents. And she defied a Supreme Court order to reduce overcrowding in the state’s prisons.

She also reversed her previous position on the death penalty in 2014, when as attorney general she appealed a lower court ruling that found it unconstitutional. Now the prosecutor who once refused to sentence violent murderers to death defended the state’s right to do just that.

Hadar Aviram, a professor of criminal justice and civil rights who asked Harris to leave the decision in place, was one of many critics of her position.

“You have no obligation to defend things that are morally unjust,” she told CNN in 2019 about the episode. “If you really believe that they are morally unjust and you have an opportunity to take a stand, I think it is absolutely necessary to do so.”