During her campaign rally in Wisconsin, Vice President Kamala Harris said, “I was elected Attorney General of the state of California and I was a courtroom prosecutor before then. So hear me when I say, I know Donald Trump’s type.”
With just over 100 days before the 2024 election Vice President Kamala Harris has leaned on her record as a prosecutor.
That record hurt her 2020 primary presidential run when critics on the left said she was too hard on crime.
Paul Henderson, who served as Kamala Harris’ chief of administration during her time as San Francisco District Attorney, told Scripps News of his time in her office, “I would say working with her was a real pleasure, but it was a push. She really has a standard of excellence that she demands for the people that are around her.”
Henderson added, “Many of the things that she was working on and talking about don’t feel so progressive today, but that’s through the lens of history. And at the time that she was doing them at the time that we were doing that work, it really was groundbreaking.”
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According to Harris’ book, both felony convictions and gun crime convictions rose during her first five years as San Francisco’s DA.
She also launched a diversion program for first time low-level drug offenders called “Back on Track.”
Less than 10% of “Back on Track” graduates returned to prison or jail within two years of release.
But she faced criticism from the left and right during her prosecutorial career.
An anti-truancy policy in San Francisco led to criminal prosecutions of parents whose children repeatedly skipped school.
“This was a little controversial in San Francisco,” Harris said during a speech to the Commonwealth Club of California.
While she faced scrutiny for the decision, her office said it resulted in a 33% increase in student attendance citywide and no parent ever saw any jail time.
Harris, a long-time opponent to capital punishment, was criticized for not seeking the death penalty in 2004 when a gang member was convicted for killing a San Francisco cop.
“What you get with Kamala Harris is a failed prosecutor who wouldn’t seek the death penalty for cop killers,” U.S. Senator Tom Cotton said of the decision.
Henderson says the criticism from both sides of the aisle shows her commitment to the “smart on crime” agenda she ran on.
“Her phrase that she coined, which was smart on crime, I think, has become commonplace. But when she was saying it, when she wrote her book — they were novel things,” Henderson said.
Now as the likely democratic candidate for President, Harris is touting her prosecutorial record, specifically drawing a contrast with former President Donald Trump, who was convicted on 34 felony fraud counts.
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