Facts about Biden’s VP pick, Kamala Harris.

Politics|
Facts about Biden’s VP pick, Kamala Harris.

Black women in the Indiana Statehouse are ‘overjoyed’ with Biden’s selection of Harris as VP nominee.

In 2017, Kamala D. Harris was sworn in as a United States Senator for California, the second African-American woman and first South Asian-American senator in history. She serves on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, the Select Committee on Intelligence, the Committee on the Judiciary, and the Committee on the Budget.

Kamala has spent her life fighting injustice. It’s a passion that was first inspired by her mother, Shyamala, an Indian-American immigrant, activist, and breast cancer researcher.

Growing up in Oakland, Kamala had a stroller-eye view of the Civil Rights movement. Through the example of courageous leaders like Thurgood Marshall, Constance Baker Motley, and Charles Hamilton Houston, Kamala learned the kind of character it requires to stand up to the powerful, and resolved to spend her life advocating for those who could not defend themselves.

After earning an undergraduate degree from Howard University and a law degree from the University of California, Hastings, she began her career in the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office.

In 2003, Kamala became the District Attorney of the City and County of San Francisco. Among her achievements as District Attorney, Harris started a program that gives first-time drug offenders the chance to earn a high school diploma and find employment.

Having completed two terms as the District Attorney of San Francisco, Kamala was elected as the first African-American and first woman to serve as California’s Attorney General. In this role, she worked tirelessly to hold corporations accountable and protect the state’s most vulnerable people.

Over the course of her nearly two terms in office, Kamala won a $25-billion settlement for California homeowners hit by the foreclosure crisis, defended California’s landmark climate change law, protected the Affordable Care Act, helped win marriage equality for all Californians, and prosecuted transnational gangs that trafficked in guns, drugs, and human beings.

In the United States Senate, Kamala’s mission remains unchanged: fighting for the rights of all communities in California. Since taking office, she has introduced and cosponsored legislation to raise wages for working people, reform our broken criminal justice system, make healthcare a right for all Americans, address the epidemic of substance abuse, support veterans and military families, and expand access to childcare for working parents.

Personal

Birth date: October 20, 1964

Birth place: Oakland, California

Birth name: Kamala Devi Harris

Father: Donald Harris, an economics professor

Mother: Shyamala Gopalan Harris, a physician

Marriage: Douglas Emhoff (2014-present)

Education: Howard University, B.A. political science and economics, 1986; University of California, Hastings College of the Law, J.D., 1989

Religion: Baptist

Timeline

1990-1998 – Serves as deputy district attorney for Alameda County, California.

1998 – Is named managing attorney of the Career Criminal Unit of the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office.

2004-2011 – District attorney of San Francisco.

2009 – “Smart on Crime: A Career Prosecutor’s Plan to Make Us Safer” is published.

2011-2016 – Attorney general of California.

January 3, 2017-present – Serves in the US Senate.

December 5, 2018 – Accepts the resignation of Larry Wallace, a senior aide, after accusations of harassment surface from the time that he worked with her at the California Department of Justice.

January 8, 2019 – Harris’ memoir, “The Truths We Hold: An American Journey,” and picture book, “Superheroes Are Everywhere,” are published.

January 21, 2019 – Announces she is running for president in a video posted to social media at the same time she appears on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

October 30, 2019 – In a memo to staff and supporters, Harris’ campaign manager says the campaign will cut staff and expenses to focus on strategy in Iowa. It will lay off staffers in her Baltimore headquarters and deploy staff from New Hampshire, Nevada and California to Iowa.

December 3, 2019 – Harris ends her 2020 presidential campaign.

March 8, 2020 – Harris endorses Joe Biden for president.

August 11, 2020 – Biden names Harris as his running mate, making her the first Black and South Asian American woman to run on a major political party’s presidential ticket.

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