San Francisco's DA is Running for CA Attorney General and she has a Fresh and Just Agenda
By Crystal Carter
Originally in McSweeney's The Panorama
When Kamala Harris decided to run for San Francisco District Attorney in 2003, she put her campaign headquarters in the most unlikely part of town, a place where most outsiders would feel uncomfortable visiting – Bayview Hunter’s Point.
It’s an isolated and bleak part of town, where drive-by shootings, drugs and violence are a way of life. Even the ground itself is dangerous, with the toxic legacy of a former Naval shipyard taking an environmental toll on residents.
Her supporters suggested that she put her headquarters in a more “central” part of town because they feared that no one would go there. But the candidate persisted. She wanted the marginalized to take part in the democratic process and feel like they had a stake in the future of the city as well.
“We pride ourselves in being a diverse city but we are also quite segregated,” said Harris.
The fears that no one would risk a trip to Hunter’s Point to help the candidate proved false. On any given weeknight there would be Pacific Heights moms, seniors from Chinatown to residents from Castro sitting in the campaign headquarters together, licking envelopes, making phone calls and seeking support, all at the direction of her mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, PhD.
And her move paid off. She captured 65% of the vote and beat her former boss, Terrence Hallinan. It was in the Bay View that Kamala Harris was announced as the new DA.
“On election night it was jammed packed at our headquarters you should’ve seen all the media with their satellite trucks. Everybody came to the Bayview that night.”
When you speak with her about her past it seems like her future was preordained. She was a child of the 60s, stirred by the struggle for civil rights from an early age. Her idols were the pioneers of the civil rights movement: Thurgood Marshall, the first African American on the Supreme Court of the United States. Charles Hamilton Houston, who was known as “The Man Who Killed Jim Crow,” Constance Baker Motley, the first African American woman to argue in front of the Supreme Court of the US.
Harris, 45, achieved many firsts leading up to her current campaign to become California State’s Attorney General. She was the first woman to be elected District Attorney in San Francisco, and she was the first African American to head a DA’s office in the state of California.
“You may be the first,” she recalled her mother telling her. “But just make sure you’re not the last.”
Harris’ mother was a Tamil Indian who immigrated to the United States from Chennai, India in 1960. Both her parents were civil rights activists and graduate students when they met. But they split up when she was five-years-old. Her father, Donald Harris, was also an immigrant of Jamaican descent and taught economics at Stanford University. Harris and her father were not very close after her parents divorced.
She recalls that her mother instilled in her and her sister hard work and moral values that were life changing.
“If you don’t define yourself, people will try to define you,” her mother preached as one of her first rules. “Don’t let anyone tell you who you are. You tell them who you are.”
Harris’ mother passed away on February 11, 2009. She was a scientist and a renowned Breast Cancer awareness expert and advocate. She worked at the UC-Berkeley Center for Research and Education on Aging where she conducted studies on how to cure breast cancer. Harris and the rest of her family view her as one of the most influential people in their lives and credit her for a lot of their motivation and strength.
Harris was born in Oakland and raised in Berkeley and Canada. She grew up in a predominately black neighborhood in the Berkeley flats. Here, she witnessed what people go through when faced with hard economic conditions that breed drugs, violence and a feeling of “no way out.”
“I attended Thousand Oaks Elementary School, and was part of the second class after the integration of Berkeley’s public schools in 1970,” says Harris.
Kamala and her sister went to public schools and they also both went into a similar profession, each dealing with law. Maya Harris, Kamala’s younger sister by two years is the former executive director of the Northern California ACLU’s Racial Justice Project, and is currently the Vice President of the Peace and Social Justice Program for the Ford Foundation in New York City.
According to her mother, Harris and her sister are well versed in Hindu traditions and mythology that can possibly be the reason they went into law. The Hindu belief system is based heavily upon law, especially in her mother’s caste of Brahmin (there are three other castes). In India, Brahmin, are usually priests, educators, scholars and preachers.
“My sister and I were raised with a very clear understanding of the history of community and the history of our ancestors,” she says with strong conviction. “It’s a matter of being taught your history and being proud of your history and being raised among people who are equally proud.”
“I feel that I’ve had a very rich life,” said Harris. “Because identity has frankly never been a problem for me.” Realizing herself as a person of mixed race in the predominately black community of Oakland, also known as the home of the Black Panthers, Harris says the community was close knit in the sense that “they wanted to know what was going on up and down their block.
Even though the area she lived in was not rich in finances, she realized that these folks had something that money or the most expensive education could not buy: awareness.
“Safety was among the most important civil rights issues people faced,” she noticed. “Women, immigrants, poor people and the homeless were usually the ones who were most vulnerable.”
As a student at Howard, the historically black university in Washington DC, Harris would spend weekends protesting South Africa’s apartheid. After moving on to Law School back in San Francisco at University of California – Hastings College of the Law, she became president of the Black Law Students’ Association and volunteered for Jesse Jackson’s presidential campaign in 1988. Her and Jackson have collaborated in the past to work towards defeating the Tiahrt Amendment calling for safer gun laws and eliminating mortgage scams by setting up a Mortgage and Investment Fraud Unit in the DAs Office.
Harris says that one of her fondest memories was at her graduation from UC – Hastings College of the Law. “My first grade teacher, Mrs. Frances Wilson, was in the audience. It was, and remains clear to me, that I would not have made it there without her and the other people in my life who convinced me at a young age to embrace and celebrate my education.”
After graduating Law school she accepted a position as Deputy District Attorney in the Alameda DAs office. From 1990 to 1998, she specialized in child sexual assault, homicide and cases dealing with robbery.
Terrence Hallinan, then DA of San Francisco, took notice of Harris’ potential when he witnessed how she worked the courtroom during a serious robbery case against a famed San Francisco attorney Tony Serra. “She was very articulate in handling the case against Serra,” remembers Hallinan.
When Harris came to work with Hallinan they got along just fine until they had a falling out. Harris says its because he was running his office inefficiently and his low conviction rate. Hallinan says that she was resentful because he replaced his chief assistant with his friend Darrel Salomon and not her. Hallinan saw it as a power struggle. She ended up having a sit in to protest Hallinan in the San Francisco DAs office. Hallinan was no stranger to sit-ins. He organized plenty in his day – to end discrimination against black employees at companies like the Sheraton Hotel, Mel’s Drive-In and a Van Ness Cadillac car dealership. “She alerted all of the news stations,” said a perplexed Hallinan. “I don’t know why she couldn’t talk to me first. She was pretty bitter.”
Harris described the office under Hallinan as “chaotic,” and in and earlier article she said there “was a huge dysfunction in the office.”
Hallinan still feels that Darrel Salomon is a smart man, “he was just not a people person.” In this moment, Harris showed that she would not let anyone get in the way of her fierce devotion to her career. This may be the reason that she has such a frequently turbulent love life. She is known to have been in a relationship with former Mayor of San Francisco, Willie Brown; and Phil Bronstein, former editor in chief of the San Francisco Chronicle who has been married to actress Sharon Stone. She received a lot of flack for these relationships from Hallinan, especially.
Hallinan is a champion for medical marijuana rights. During his time in office he tried to hold then police Chief Fagan’s son and two other off duty police accountable for beating up a man outside of a bar when he refused to give up his fajita. The case got really slippery when Hallinan said that he would clear the victims record so his case would have more credibility. This case is better known as “Fajita Gate.”
“I’m happy because Kamala carried on a lot of my policies,” such as his stance on medical marijuana, the death penalty and three strikes only for violent crimes. “She said she was going to do the same things I did but better.”
Hallinan has since retreated to Petaluma where he works for a private litigation firm with his son and is a staunch supporter of medical marijuana. Harris ended up running for DA again for a second term and went uncontested.
She lays down the iron fist and then completely mystifies you with quotes like this: “When it comes to crime, I don’t want to be soft or tough, I want to be smart. The law fundamentally gives a voice to the voiceless.”
Harris even has a book trumpeting her new coinage: “Smart On Crime, A Career Prosecutor’s Plan to Make Us Safer.” In her book she speaks on how to reduce crime levels by reducing recidivism and the appropriate punishments for offenders. She believes that violent offenders should be locked up but when it comes to nonviolent offenses she feels that prison is not the place for them.
One of the issues that she has advocated for the most is recidivism. She sees this as one of the biggest problems facing the prison system and she offers ways to stop the cycle of ex-offenders being recycled back into the prison system.
Harris’ “Back On Track” Program funds reentry services for young adult non-violent drug offenders who are facing a felony conviction. “The war on drugs was a failure,” said Harris. She wants to make it right by bringing the “passion from the streets to the courtroom.”
The program offers a chance for the offender to make a smooth transition from prison back into the workforce through education and obtaining a GED, employment support services and healthcare. Preference is given to parents of young children and once they are admitted into the program they can choose from many programs such as childcare, anger management and tutoring. According to the DA’s office fewer than 10% have reoffended compared to a 54% statewide average recidivism rate.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has recently signed the SF model into legislation as Assembly Bill 750. He says that he wants to encourage other counties to adopt the model that Harris created four years ago. Harris might be more motivated than most to break the cycle of crime and rogues preying on the disadvantaged because she saw it first-hand growing up.
“If you want to believe the stereotype of who we are, one would think that we don’t want people to go to jail. Well the reality of it is this,” she began in defense that all San Franciscans are a bunch of dazed and confused liberal lefties. “ We all want to make sure that the weak among us are given a voice, are given support and that the people who take advantage of them face the appropriate consequences.”
Harris has come under fire in the past because illegal immigrants went through her reentry program and were not deported back to their country of origin after their first criminal offense. In one of the cases, an illegal immigrant attacked a woman in upscale Pacific Heights, attempted to take her purse and then tried to run her over. It turned out that the offender, Alexander Izaguirre, went through the DA’s Reentry program. Since he had completed the program his record for selling cocaine in the Tenderloin was to be exonerated.
“It is not our job to find out if the people we prosecute are immigrants or not. We leave that up to US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Juvenile Probation Center to find that out. What we do here is prosecute the cases, we are blind to immigration status of the people we prosecute unless we are notified otherwise,” said Russ Giuntini, Chief Assistant DA of San Francisco (AKA) Harris’ #2.
One of the things that Harris will have to leave behind, if she wants to be elected, is her current personal philosophy on the death penalty. Harris’ belief on the death penalty, which she believes is ‘flawed,’ has gotten her into some trouble in the past. Not once but twice.
During her first few months as DA, a 21-year-old African American male gunned down Police officer Isaac Espinoza in a shooting match in Bayview. On April 14, days before Espinoza was laid to rest, Harris announced at a press conference that she would not seek the death penalty. This left the San Francisco Police Department devastated and is said to have left a huge rift between the relationship of the DAs office and the SFPD. This may have since dissipated because Officers for Justice, which is comprised of mostly African American cops in San Francisco, are now endorsing her, along with SF Chief of Police Gascon and LAPD Chief Bratton.
“I am personally opposed to the death penalty but as Attorney General, I will uphold the law,” she said. “This is the same position that the current AG holds as well as four of the last nine AGs in the state of California,” added Brokaw, her campaign manager.
She is also not going to pursue the death penalty in a more recent case involving a gang member who killed a father and his two sons. The gang member is an undocumented immigrant and has caused the national spotlight to be put on San Francisco’s “Sanctuary City” policies.
Although San Francisco is known as a sanctuary city Harris agreed to not let “illegal’s” into the program anymore. The term “sanctuary city has taken on a different definition than was intended in the 80s. The main issue is San Francisco’s City of Refuge ordinance, adopted in 1989 as part of a national sanctuary movement intended to help Central Americans flee civil war in their country. After Bush’s proposal to build a fence to stop Mexicans from coming into the US the ordinance lost its initial meaning. The current definition of a sanctuary city is basically a city that harbors immigrants and it is raising concerns because of the number of undocumented immigrants who are committing crimes.
In response to undocumented immigrants Mayor Gavin Newsom has put into effect a statute that requires the police to report to ICE whenever they arrest a juvenile on felony charges that they suspect is undocumented. This has caused a lot of unrest for the immigrant population but Newsom said that he is sticking to his guns. This has pitted the board of supervisors against Newsom. The Board signed into approval a measure that would keep the city from turning over youth to ICE.
“The crime rate by illegals is enormous,” said Kenneth Walsh, associate director at San Francisco State University’s Criminal Justice Department. “We don’t have the resources to protect undocumented people who commit crime. We have enough homegrown crime.”
“As the AG she will have to execute the people’s will and it will set a bad precedent if she only wants to enforce her own personal philosophies,” said Walsh, when referring to her stance against the death penalty and its effect on San Francisco’s sanctuary city policies.
California has been served with a mandate to release 40,000 inmates to relieve the prison overpopulation problem. Harris says that she wants to ensure that prisoners transition into law-abiding citizens. Through “preparing nonviolent former offenders for entry into apprenticeships in multiple industries,” Harris says the prison overpopulation will be greatly reduced.
California has the most prisoners than any state in the country, 316,229 to be exact, over twice the maximum capacity according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
“We live in a state that would rather spend money keeping someone in prison than sending a child to college,” said Tammy Johnson, Director of Strategic Partnerships at the Applied Research Center based in Oakland, California. California spends $49,000 a year to keep a prisoner in the system when it costs $14,000 on average to send a child to a California university.
Johnson is an advocate for racially equitable public policy practices with a history in community organizing. She suggested a comparison between a white woman getting addicted and overdosing on her meds and a black person in the flatlands of Oakland with a drug addiction. The black man is usually the one who will get criminalized and the white woman will get medical rehabilitation, she explained.
“Both of those people need the help in terms of their addiction,” Johnson said. “They need medical and psychological treatment, they do not need to be criminalized. Until we begin to grapple with this issue, we will continue to see our prisons overpopulate.”
According to the DA’s office, there is a strong connection between truancy and crime. Researchers have estimated that an increase of 10 percentage points in graduation rates would cut murders and assaults by 20%. Let’s be as shocked as we are about a child not going to school, as we are when a crime is committed, she says.
The DA has successfully implanted her Anti-Truancy work into the San Francisco school district. According to the DA’s office, San Francisco’s school systems have lost as much as $10 million annually in attendance based state revenues.
Early results indicate that truancy is falling because of her program. At an elementary school the number of chronic truants shrunk 75% (from 20 to five). At a high school, overall attendance improved 40 percent among the 100 truant students in the DA office’s mediation. So far the DAs Office, in collaboration with the San Francisco Unified School District, have held 75 one-on-one conferences with parents. School district officials along with prosecutors held numerous face-to-face meetings, made phone calls and sent letters home.
If the parents still fail to send their children to school then they may face a fine of up to $2,500. “What if we don’t have enough money to send our children to school?” Is the question on some of the parents’ minds.
Keith Choy, Director of the Stay-In-School Coalition and part of the San Francisco Unified School District, says that the $2,500 is the last resort.
“Kujichagulia” which means self-determination in the African language, Swahili were her opening remarks to the graduating class of “Changing the Odds,” summer 2009 program. The graduates, ages 16-24, mostly black and Latino were dressed in their black cap and gowns on stage looking out at their family, friends, and professionals who claim that they “would put their life on the line for these kids.” All of the students, of which ninety percent are in foster care and fifty percent young mothers, were non-violent offenders and were in the criminal justice system for petty theft and small run ins with the police.
“Its not about where you start in life,” advised DA Harris. “Its where you finish. Keep your eyes on the prize.”
“Changing the Odds” reentry program was created by Kamala Harris, in collaboration with New America Media and Youth Outlook Magazine (YO!), along with Bay Area activists. Twelve students who were in an applicant pool of over 200, were chosen to participate. For 10-weeks the students received state of the art training in Final Cut Pro and Dream Weaver and produced over 50 multimedia projects. The published work focused on events and issues going on in their community such as immigration, healthcare and relationships.
The people who have the most to lose to crime are people of color. “We need to give them a skill that’s going to keep them off the corner.”
Changing the Odds Summer Internship 2009 from New America Media on Vimeo.
Lateefah Simon, is the Executive Director of the Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights of San Francisco. She also led the Reentry Division at San Francisco’s DAs office and worked with Harris to make their model a national example. Their model has helped reduce the recidivism rate for the population it serves. “
The class Valedictorian, Amanze Emenike, 23, said he is thankful that Kamala cares about them. “She’s from the community that I am from so she knows who are and what we go through.”
According to Albert Felipe, Back on Track Graduate Service Component Program Coordinator, there are no other DA’s who are doing the kind of grassroots work that Harris is doing. These programs do not use government money, they are all privately funded by donations,
Kamala is said to be receiving more endorsements than any other candidate running for AG. In the Bay Area alone and within one month, Kamala Harris was able to raise more than $43,000. Jerry Brown is said to have amassed over $7 million for his AG campaign. Most of Harris’ endorsements are friends of Obama’s campaign either as significant donors or as fundraisers.
Her two major opponents, based on how much money they are fundraising, are Alberto Torrico, California State Assembly member who is working towards taxing big oil to fund education. He entered the race in the beginning of February and has raised close to $1 million. According to the Oakland Tribune the whole race could cost $5 million or more. And Rocky Delgadillo who is the former City Attorney of Los Angeles has raised $935, 624. Tom Harman, serving on the State Senate, is the only Republican running thus far and he has made $429,067.
Overall, in her campaign for Attorney General, she has raised more than any other republican or democrat who is running for the seat, over $1.3 million. More than 2,400 donors have contributed to her campaign and more than $500,000 was raised online.
The organizer for the Facebook website is Kamala Harris’ niece, Meena Harris, who has worked for AG opponent, Chris Kelly, in the past and knows all of the Facebook secrets, such as posting videos and invitations in order to have high visibility. Meena Harris (born on the same day as Kamala), following her aunt and mother’s path, is in her first year at Harvard Law School. She said that her and “Boss Kelly” were able to keep things civil in the work place and they have a great relationship outside of the campaign. Harris gives all the credit to Meena Harris, who has contributed greatly to the “Buzz into Bucks” Campaign, referring to the “buzz” on social networking sites.
Speaking of “buzz,”, they call Harris the ‘female Barack Obama’ because of the biracial background and political trailblazing. She was a strong supporter of Barack during his campaign canvassing in Iowa all the way till the night of this election. She is known to fill in on the behalf of Obama for campaigns such as the Democratic National Convention. During this time she was able to make a lot of connections from people and organizations that would later come to support and endorse her.
“Harris’ and Obama’s friendship goes back several years,” said Tony West, Harris’ brother-in-law and Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division in the White House Justice Department. “He has always viewed her as a friend and has looked to her for support and advice. I expect their friendship will continue.”
West went on to stress the importance that a state that is as diverse as California needs to reflect that diversity in its political chairs in order to convey its cultural heritage.
You can definitely see that diversity in Harris’ staff. Paul Henderson, Chief of Administration, in the DAs office prides himself as being one of the first gay black men in his position.
“Gay black men are victimized just as much as anyone else and it’s important that they are represented by people who look like them,” said Henderson who greets everyone that comes to the DAs office with a hug.
Brian Brokaw is Kamala Harris’ campaign manager says that fundraising is a big part of the campaign. He was the deputy communications director for Phil Angelides for Governor from 2004-2006. He has also worked as an aide for John Edwards in the 2004 presidential elections.
Among her endorsers is LAPD Chief Bill Bratton. Brokaw said that was “about as big a law enforcement endorsement that you can receive in a race like this.”
“Bill Bratton’s endorsement is a big boost for DA Harris because he is one of the most respected law enforcement officials in the state, if not the country,” stated San Francisco Police Commission member and Executive Director of the Berkeley Center for Criminal Justice, David Onek.
She has also been endorsed by San Francisco Police Chief George Gascon, which goes to show that her relations with the police department have been bridged. I believe that Kamala Harris’ ‘smart on crime approach, with its proven track record in San Francisco, is what California needs to get tough and smart on crime, said Gascon.
“I hear she is going to get here early,” said one of the young professionals at the evening mixer. “She usually gets here toward the end of things. It should be interesting to see how long she stays.”
DA Harris came after everyone had arrived and left before everyone left. There were over 50 out of about 90 members who turned out at the event for the finance committee, also known as the Young Professionals for Kamala Harris.
The mixer took place at Mr. in the Financial District, a Barbershop and lounge fully equipped with alcoholic beverages for the competitive businessperson’s choice. Two African American students from Stanford University started the barbershop in 2007 for the urban professional. Former Mayor and Harris’ ex-lover, Willie Brown, frequents this barbershop as well.
“I want to thank you for all of the phone calls and emails,” said Harris in regards to fundraising. “You did whatever you had to do legally or illegally!”
Lucky for Harris, there is no spending cap on how much you can spend on a statewide election. Back in 2003, during her run for DA against Hallinan, she far exceeded the city’s cap without notifying the city’s Ethics Commission, which resulted in a hefty fine and being forced to place ads in local newspapers notifying the public of her mistake. Although Harris allowed for her humor to shine through, the atmosphere was competitive. “I already raised my $2,500. How much have you raised,” asked one of the professionals to the woman standing by him. The Young Professionals are made up of young doctors, lawyers, public officials, and students. Not only are they in the Bay Area, they are in Southern California as well.
The Young Professionals, also known as the finance committee, is an all-volunteer committee who have committed to raising $2,500 by June 2010, which is when the final elections will take place.
Celebrity supporters looking for things to pour their money into have taken a liking to Kamala Harris who is not too shabby on the “Hollywood looks” herself. She is smart and attractive and she blends right into the elite social circle of Brentwood and the Hollywood Hills. Lisa Ling has hosted fundraisers focusing on the Asian Pacific Islander community among many other big spenders in Southern California. Harris has also caught the wallet of San Francisco’s Sean Penn as well.
“The work of being California’s Attorney General, to a certain extant, will be a continuation of the work I have been doing for twenty years as a prosecutor,” says Harris.
An Italian Proverb says: “At the end of the game the king and the pawn go back into the same box.” But at this point there is still a big question mark on who is going where and who will check whom? There are a number of contingencies in the California Democratic race for Attorney General. Jerry Brown will only run for Governor if Diane Feinstein opts out. Harris has said that she would not run against Brown if he decides to keep his seat as AG even though she unseated former boss Hallinan.
“Everyone knows he [Jerry Brown] is going to run for governor,” commented Brokaw.
But does everyone really know that? Mayor Gavin Newsom has already dropped out of the race for Governor so who is to say that Harris might not fall into the same box with him? Jerry Brown has put together an “exploratory committee” that will test the waters to access if he has a chance of winning the race. He has yet to announce, officially, that he is running for Governor. Although Brown has served two consecutive terms as California’s governor already he will be allowed to seek a third term because term limits provisions approved by California voters in 1990 passed after he left office in 1982.
He is said to be both raising money for a reelection bid as California’s top cop and actively courting a run for governor. “It’s just too early to tell,” says Barbara O’Connor, Professor of Communications at Sacramento State University. The race elections will not take place until about a year from now.
Dianne Feinstein, 76, says that she might run for Governor and if she does then everyone’s plans will be thrown off track. O’Connor has reason to believe that Feinstein will run for Governor.
“I believe that Jerry Brown is doing good work and if he decides to continue on as attorney general I will not challenge him,” said Harris to KGO/ABC TV.
If she becomes California Attorney General and implements programs like “Back On Track” Reentry, she will absolutely have a positive impact on the prison system, said Keith Kamisugi, Director of Communications at the Equal Justice Society. EJS is a San Francisco based strategy group heightening consciousness on race in the law and popular discourse.
Recently, Harris won an environmental and hazardous waste case against U-Haul. She collaborated with Jerry Brown along with seven other DAs and settled the case after U-Haul agreed to pay $2 million and also agreed to inspect its hazardous waste on a weekly basis to make sure they are not exceeding their waste limit.
Kamala says she is superstitious and doesn’t think too far ahead. “What’s important to me is to do what I’m doing now and do that well,” said Harris when asked about her future aspirations, which can be based on how Brown and Feinstein move. “If everything works out perhaps other opportunities will present themselves.”
