If you told me last year I would not be supporting a woman of color running for president, I wouldn’t have believed it.
But that is because I would never have believed a woman of color would have supported and enacted policies that put more black and brown people in prisons.
The self-proclaimed progressive prosecutor, Kamala Harris, is anything but progressive when it comes to prosecutions.
However, before I get into her flawed policies, I will give credit where it is due. Harris opposed the anti-gay Proposition 8, opposed California’s “Sodomite Suppression Act” ballot initiative which called on the death penalty on the basis of one’s sexuality, supported undocumented immigrants’ bid to practice law with a license, helped defend Obamacare in court, created a website that made police misconduct more transparent and sponsored legislation that increased transparency regarding websites’ data collection.
She appears to be a great candidate. Her aforementioned actions are all things that I fervently support but it does not excuse the rest of her track record as San Francisco’s District Attorney and California’s Attorney General.
For every positive and progressive step Harris took forward, she took a couple back.
Upon assuming office as San Francisco’s District Attorney in 2004, Harris was adamantly against capital punishment but later actively worked to protect it.
In 2014, she appealed a judge’s decision that deemed capital punishment to be unconstitutional.
When the Supreme Court ruled that the overcrowding of California prisons was considered cruel and unusual punishment because of the harsh conditions it created for inmates, Harris fought to release a minimal amount of prisoners.
When Gov. Jerry Brown announced his $730 million plan to move inmates into private prisons and vacant county jails, she stayed silent even though the California Senate had a better plan that focused on getting inmates mental health and drug treatment.
In fact, Harris actually argued in court to keep an innocent man in jail because he did not file his petition on time!
A woman who claimed to be against mass incarceration actively worked to try to keep Daniel Larsen, who was proven innocent during his sentence, incarcerated over a simple technicality.
It is important to note that this is not an isolated incident either.
On another occasion, Harris tried to dismiss a lawsuit brought by California inmates over solitary confinement by lying and claiming California prisons did not have solitary confinement.
While she rallied against Proposition 8 and the Sodomite Suppression Act, she failed her LGBTQ constituents when put to the test later on. In 2015, Harris tried to block a transgender inmate’s request for gender reassessment surgery.
There was also the case of a Sikh man who was denied from working as a prison guard because of his religiously mandated beard. Harris claimed the beard prevented him from being fitted properly with a gas mask even though California’s corrections and rehabilitations regulations allowed guards to keep beards for medical reasons, according to CBS Sacramento.
For a woman who said she sought to reform the justice system, she did far more to keep things going the same way.
She resisted attempts to hold police officers accountable for fatal shootings on two different occasions.
Harris opposed legislation that called on her office to investigate fatal police shootings and refused to endorse statewide regulations on the use of police body cameras.
She justified these decisions by claiming local agencies were better equipped to enact the use of body cameras or investigations instead of the state.
She enacted more ‘tough on crime’ type policies which is the antithesis of progressive ones that counter mass incarceration.
In fact, the felony conviction rate in San Francisco rose from 52 percent to 67 percent in three years while she was the city’s District Attorney – the highest in a decade, according to The Atlantic.
She promised to be a changing force for the criminal justice system during her previous positions and failed. So I can’t help but call BS when Kamala Harris says she will be a progressive force for the nation.
