My Case For Kamala
The Democratic Primary is in full swing, and with the first debates are just around the corner, I wanted to take some time to talk about whose corner I’m in. I will vote for the Democratic nominee regardless for the sake of the court and to stop this constitutional crisis, but there are a few that I want and a few that I don’t with equal fervor. I won’t discuss the latter, but I’ll freely admit the former: in order, my top picks are Julian Castro, Kamala Harris, and Elizabeth Warren. Of those three, I believe Kamala Harris has the strongest chance of winning, and the strongest case to make for why she deserves my vote.
Why I want Kamala Harris has a lot to do with who I am as a person. I’m a sexual assault survivor and a former victim advocate. I’m a mother who had access to paid family leave and want to ensure that the parents that come after me have that privilege as well. I’m an LGBTQ woman with loved ones who are in the same group. I’m a veteran, a student, a state worker, a student teacher, a parent, and a woman whose very existence stands as an antithesis of what the Trump administration has wrought on America. Each of those characteristics make up who I am, and each one of them compel me to vote for Kamala.
I’ll start with sexual assault, because that is where my story with Kamala Harris begins. I have previously talked about being assaulted in a night club (among a professional and personal life riddled with sexual harassment, like most women I know and love), and don’t seek to recount my story, but I will say that the Kavanaugh hearings brought up a great deal of emotional trauma for me. It was during this time that she caught my eye. Kamala’s pointed questioning of Brett Kavanaugh and her gentle, supportive questioning of Doctor Christine-Blasé Ford gave me a great deal of hope in a dark time of my life. Unlike other senators of both parties, Kamala has the experience and intelligence of a skilled prosecutor. She did not — and does not — ask questions for the sake of grandstanding. Observe:
• https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4747564/kamala-harris-questions-kavanaugh-roe
I will be referencing more of Kamala’s expert questioning (to include Barr and Sessions) later, so I can get back to her record on sexual assault. Harris’s early prosecutor career focused largely on sexual assault, including the creation of a task force to prosecute perpetrators of child abuse and sexual assault cases (https://twitter.com/notcapnamerica/status/1101695442813964288)
Harris went after tech companies hard over “revenge porn”. As California Attorney General, she brokered a meeting between tech company officials and the victims (and their lawyers) of revenge porn. After the meeting, Twitter banned non consensual sex videos and photos and Google launched a campaign to remove videos and photos from search results that were reported. Her words on the matter were clear, and powerful: “First, don’t call it revenge porn. It’s not. People do it to torment people. They do it to make money. And to call it pornography is to misunderstand the problem, because there’s no consent. It’s “cyber exploitation,” and let me tell you how it ruins lives.” (https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/02/01/kamala-harris-porn-california-attorney-general-facebook-twitter-silicon-valley-224534)
In the Senate, she proposed the Empower Act, which would have reduced the barriers around victims of harassment from speaking out by prohibiting nondisclosure and nondisparagement clauses in legal settlements. She targeted Backdoor as a DA and Senator, ultimately leading to the site’s shutdown. I understand this had negative repercussions for sex workers, but California has a massive sex trafficking and child trafficking problem. I do not believe her actions were intended to harm sex workers in any way, and painting her actions as such (as many op-eds have done) is misleading at best, and malicious at worst, especially in light of her strong history against sexual assault.
Another issue dear to my heart are LGBTQ rights. Harris has the strongest record out of every candidate running:
• When she was San Francisco DA, Harris created a special Hate Crimes Unit that focused on crimes against LGBT students.
• Argued for gay adoption in 2008 in wake of Proposition 8 (https://twitter.com/notcapnamerica/status/1098362249050234880?s=19)
• Did not defend Prop 8 in court as Attorney General
• When Prop 8 was overturned, she personally called the director of a court house and told them to begin issuing marriage licenses immediately (https://twitter.com/notcapnamerica/status/1098663214324293635?s=19)
• Absolutely destroyed Brett Kavanaugh on whether or not he would uphold Obergefell v. Hodges (legalized gay marriage in the US) on the Supreme Court if confirmed (https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/harris-presses-kavanaugh-on-gay-rights/2018/09/06/70a01edc-b22f-11e8-8b53-50116768e499_video.html?utm_term=.71343d5b2dcf)
• Vocally opposed to North Carolina’s anti-transgender bathroom bill, and co-sponsored the Equality Act to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
The above is just a sampling of Kamala Harris’s record on LGBTQ rights. If you are interested in more, I highly suggest the following thread for more video clips and articles: https://twitter.com/LisaTalmadge/status/1097925502273314817
Someone is bound to bring up the one blemish on her LGBTQ record in the case of two trans inmates that requested gender reassignment surgery. While she did not personally manage the case, she accepted full responsibility for its outcome and has apologized publicly and reaffirmed her stance that trans rights are human rights (https://www.washingtonblade.com/2019/01/21/harris-takes-full-responsibility-for-briefs-against-surgery-for-trans-inmates/)
I understand a bulk of the criticism against Harris is about her criminal justice record. I will address the negative aspects later, but here are a few solid pros I have not already covered in other sections:
• She created the Back on Track program as a D.A., which reduced recidivism and wiped the record clean for successful members, and expanded it as Attorney General. Other counties emulated the program and it was eventually expanded into a state-wide law.
• As AG she also established the California Division of Recidivism Reduction and Re-Entry.
• Her truancy program. I have experienced this on two levels — as a student who was chronically absent because of depression, and as a tutor trying to help English Language Learner students catch up in both language ability and content familiarization. There are many factors that contribute to chronic absence, and I am sympathetic to them. But it does not change the fact dropouts comprised two-thirds of prison inmates in California, or that 94% of homicide victims in San Francisco under the age of 25 are high school dropouts. More information on why this is a pro and not a con on her record can be better summarized here:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1111264956400521216.html
And here’s one video of many with Kamala talking about the subject: https://twitter.com/notcapnamerica/status/1100456052150153217
For more information on Kamala’s criminal justice career, I would also suggest the following articles, because the authors did clear and deep research and illustrated their point in a way that would be redundant to try and replicate:
https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2019/02/the-case-for-kamala-harris.html
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/01/the-secret-to-understanding-kamala-harris/
I am not a member of a cult and can accept and examine criticism about her criminal justice record. But there are a few points that simply cannot be ignored — California is the most populated state in the union. It is literally impossible as Attorney General of a state with almost 40 million people to be involved in every single case. As I said earlier, Kamala acknowledges this, and also acknowledges that “the buck stops with her”.
But to try and say Kamala is a cop as some kind of slur? Well slap my ass and put raisins in my potato salad, because this white lady is calling 911 in 2020, because I strongly believe she is the best candidate to go toe to toe with Trump. I’ll address this in two parts: her strengths matching Trump’s weaknesses, and her path to victory.
Harris shines in hearings, which is important for two reasons: I think it will translate well on the debate stage, and, as previously mentioned, she does not grandstand — she asks pointed questions that put the questioner on the record for the future. Jeff Sessions confessed he found her intimidating and that she “made him nervous”. Because of Harris and Al Franken’s pointed and direct questions, Session recused himself from the Russia investigation, which directly gave us the special counsel. (https://www.latimes.com/politics/washington/la-na-essential-washington-updates-sen-kamala-harris-and-sessions-face-1497387259-htmlstory.html)
Harris’s questioning of Barr went viral, and it put Barr on the record that he had not examined any of the special counsel’s evidence despite making a judicial decision to not press charges! Here is a link to the full questioning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZICLS7Avio
The Barr situation is still unfolding and I think it’s fresh in most politically aware people’s minds, so I won’t dwell on it here.
Trump has his nicknames for Biden, Warren, and Bernie, but he’s largely stayed clear on Kamala, until Barr’s confirmation — now she’s “very nasty” with a “bit of a nasty wit in her”. She’s not intimidated by him, or any of his appointees that he’s questioned, and we need that in a candidate. We have seen other Democrats (who I respect and would vote for) get on Trump’s level. That is a losing game. We need a candidate that can give a quick rebuke of Trump’s latest horrific statement that can then pivot back to their message. Everything I’ve seen her do on the campaign trail points to her having that quality (especially prominent in her announcement speech — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4ecapNBaXU, but also present in other interviews and her town halls).
If she makes it through the primary, I think she is the absolute antithesis of Trump and would fare the best against him in the general election. I’m not alone in that thought:
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/bakarisellers/kamala-harris-is-the-electable-democrat and
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/05/kamala-harris-2020-campaign/586033/ sum these arguments up well.
On a view of her best path to nomination, I recommend starting with 538: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/kamala-harris-2020-democratic-primary/
The policies that Kamala Harris has put forward are in line with my own priorities. She has cosigned on the Medicare 4 All Act, though has also stated she is open to expanding the ACA, which is my preferred method for increasing healthcare access to Americans. She has also signaled support for the Green New Deal. But her own policy proposals stand out more to me:
• The LIFT Act would improve my family’s quality of life, as well as virtually every other lower to middle class American (https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/4/text). TL;DR version — Households making up to 100K get $6K/year credit or $500/month, Singles making up to 50K get $3K/year or $250/month
• The Rent Relief Act (https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/3250) would amend the IRS Code to allow a refundable tax credit for individuals who pay rent for a principal residence that exceeds 30% of their gross income.
• Her Teaching proposal (best version is Washington Post, but I’m out of free articles, so: https://www.rollcall.com/news/campaigns/kamala-harris-details-plan-boost-teacher-pay) is VITAL for fixing our education system. It provides additional funding to underserved schools (schools with predominately white students get $23 BILLION MORE than schools with predominately students of color, source: https://edbuild.org/content/23-billion) and closes the insane wage gap for teachers.
• On criminal justice reform, Kamala has proposed the Pretrial Integrity and Safety Act (https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/1593) and her newest bill would address the pay disparity for public defenders and help better allocate their insane workload (https://abovethelaw.com/2019/05/kamala-harris-stands-up-to-support-underfunded-overworked-public-defenders/)
• Kamala supports paid family leave (specifically Gillibrand’s FAMILY Act) and her proposal for addressing maternal morality in the country came before Warren’s and I would argue is more likely to lead to successful results (https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/3363)
If you’d like more information on Kamala Harris, I recommend starting with the following excellent twitter account that’s been compiling all of her policies, proposals, votes in the Senate, interviews, and other relevant information: https://twitter.com/blackwomenviews/status/1120804385901240320.
I have done my research and feel confident about my decision for who to support in the Democratic primary. It is obviously still early, and things can always change, but my heart and mind are on the same page at this time.
