Is Kamala Harris A Progressive?
It depends on how you define ‘progressive’
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Depending on who you ask, Kamala Harris is either a neo-liberal, corporatist dedicated to upholding the status quo, or she is a radical leftist who wants to defund the police. At least, this is the case if you listen exclusively to Fox News, The President and Twitter activists. However, most Americans have a more nuanced view of the VP-hopeful, with a Morning Consult poll showing that voters rated her a 2.5 on a 1-to-7, very liberal-to-very conservative scale.
So what’s the truth; is Kamala Harris a progressive, or is she not?
To begin to answer this question, one has to first look back to her early career as a prosecutor and a District Attorney. While having held these jobs has led her critics to criticise her for being “a cop”, it was during the years Harris held these positions that she began to find what issues mattered the most to her, and how she could change them. As a prosecutor, she prosecuted a number of crimes, but had a particular focus on sexual assaults — particularly those committed by repeat offenders — , while as District Attorney, she sought strong sentences for a number of violent offenders — most notably for that of a man who set his young son on fire (the man’s sentence was tripled after Harris’s intervention).
It was also as District Attorney that Harris voiced her long-standing personal opposition to the death penalty. This was most notable in the case of the horrific murder of police officer Isaac Espinoza. In the aftermath of this crime, which angered and horrified Californians in equal measure, Kamala Harris — then a newly elected, 39-year-old, holding elected office for the first time — faced one of the biggest decisions of her career: whether or not to seek the death penalty for Espinoza’s killers.
At the time, the death penalty was supported by a super-majority of voters (even as late as 2016, a majority of Californians voiced their support for executions). Meanwhile, the brutal nature of the crime in question only intensified calls for the cop killer to be executed. However, Harris refused to budge on this issue and continued to oppose an execution. She felt the blowback to this decision first-hand when attending Espinoza’s funeral, as Senator Feinstein called out Harris’s decision in front of mourners — leading to the police officers in the audience turning to stare disapprovingly at Harris. Yet, she never budged an inch.
81% of Black Americans want maintained or increased levels of police presence in their communities
This wasn’t the last time Harris would go against the will of many police officers, as seen in 2015, when — as Attorney General — she made California the first state to require all police officers to wear body cameras.
The above examples show how the ‘Kamala is a cop’ narratives fail in fairly representing Harris’s record. While there are more things wrong with the current state of law enforcement and criminal justice than I could ever list in just one article, Harris’s attempts to change this system from within don’t automatically make her not progressive. In fact, to say such a thing would be to ignore the fact that sexual assaults — a crime frequently prosecuted by Harris — are disproportionately committed against minorities. It would also be ignoring the fact that — unlike many white activists think — most black people want more good, reform-orientated people in law enforcement, and don’t just want the entire system of policing to be abolished (81% of Black Americans want maintained or increased levels of police presence in their communities).
‘Kamala is a cop’ attacks also ignore Harris’s successful attempts at helping those who have found themselves on the wrong side of the law. As DA, she oversaw the creation of an anti-recidivism program that by all measures was a roaring success, leading to recidivism rates 5 times lower than would’ve been expected without the program.
However, while DA Harris was able to show leniency, and give second chances, to those who deserved it, she sought stronger laws against violent criminals and in the process protected many vulnerable communities. This is most evident in her decision as DA to support removing ‘societal bias’ as an excuse for LGBTQ+ hate crimes (Harris also stood up for the LGBTQ+ community when opposing Proposition 8 — which defined marriage as being between one man and one woman — and, when she set up an LGBTQ+ hate crimes unit).
As Attorney General, Kamala won a multi-billion dollar settlement from big banks because of their foreclosure abuses
Harris maintained her focus on changing the status quo as California’s Attorney General. One of many examples of this was seen in the response of Harris and her team to the fact that the AG’s department had argued in court for keeping prisoners in jail beyond their sentences to use for labor: as soon as this had occurred, Harris’s team ordered the AG’s department to never use this excuse again.
As AG, she also broadened her focus to look at issues concerning the environment and housing. During her time as AG, she directed an investigation into an oil spill and secured an indictment of the pipeline company in question and, during this time she won a multi-billion dollar settlement from big banks because of their foreclosure abuses.
Meanwhile, despite Harris being frequently attacked on her record over marijuana, she’s actually got a strong track record on this issue: While she was AG, marijuana admissions dropped from 817-a-year to 137-a-year in California and while in the Senate, Harris introduced the MORE act to legalise marijuana usage federally. This marked one of a number of times Senator Harris proved her left-wing bonafides. Other examples include; her sponsoring of a bill to make lynching a federal crime and her repeated calls for the firing of Stephen Miller (and, of course, who can forget her interrogation of the likes of Bill Barr, Brett Kavanaugh and Jeff Sessions). With this in mind, it’s no wonder that Harris was scored as the most left-wing/liberal senator in America in 2019 (even ahead of Bernie Sanders). It’s also no wonder she’s received perfect (or near-perfect) lifetime ratings from environmental, trade union and women’s rights groups.
So, to get back to the original question, is Kamala Harris a progressive? Well, it depends on how you define ‘progressive’. If you define progressive as someone who prioritises purity tests over progress and who refuses to compromise and work with people they disagree with, then Kamala Harris isn’t a progressive. But, if you define a progressive as someone who actually achieves progress — who leaves an indelible, positive impact on poor and vulnerable communities — then Kamala Harris is about as progressive as they come.
