Already a subscriber? Log in to hide ads. The presidential campaign is light on policy details. For hints of what Kamala Harris might do as president, we look at her track record in public office. Kamala Harris has spent nearly her entire career working in government.
She won a U. When Ms. She also wanted to reduce the number of repeat offenders. As district attorney, she started a diversion program for first-time, nonviolent offenders in low-level drug sales.
Citing statistics that most incarcerated people were high school dropouts, she created a truancy court that held parents accountable for school attendance. Between and , habitual absences at elementary schools dropped by half. Barbara Boxer. Dianne Feinstein drew a standing ovation when she said the case warranted the death penalty.
Harris sat in a front pew. She did not change her mind. After a squeaker election in , Ms. Harris became attorney general. Unlike previous attorneys general, she refused to take positions on ballot measures. She talks today about going after for-profit colleges and big banks when she was California attorney general.
The mortgage foreclosure crisis defined her six-year tenure. The Great Recession was still reverberating in California when Ms. Harris became attorney general in Nearly a third of homeowners were underwater, owing more on their homes than they were worth. The hardball tactics paid off. She also took on the tech industry in a sprawling case against a now-defunct sex advertising internet site, Backpage.
