Kamala Harris’s push for police reform in the Senate is shaping up as an audition for the job of Joe Biden’s vice president, as she makes herself a highly public voice for change after years as a no-nonsense prosecutor.By promoting a bill to ban police chokeholds and make other changes -- and by publicly clashing with a senior Senate Republican over the legislation -- Harris has put herself front and center in the debate over congressional efforts to change police behavior.The reform debate burnishes the former San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general as a social-justice activist.
Harris is one of several Black women Biden is considering, along with Obama national security adviser Susan Rice, Florida Representative Val Demings, Congressional Black Caucus Chairwoman Karen Bass of California, former Georgia state House minority leader Stacey Abrams, and Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms.Harris, co-author of a police reform bill with New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, faced down Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn on the Senate floor last week, suggesting that Republicans were trying to obstruct reforms strong enough to address the concerns of Black Americans.
Harris branded herself during her own run for the Democratic nomination last year as a “progressive prosecutor” despite criticism from reform advocates of an anti-truancy program that threatened parents of children who skipped school with prosecution, her California offices’ attempts to block bids for freedom from men of color who had been wrongfully convicted of crimes, and other policies and prosecutions.
”“Senator Harris has always been a champion for reform of the criminal justice system,” said Jim Margolis, a Democratic ad specialist who worked for Harris’ presidential campaign and who helped shape voter perception of a once little-known Obama.
Even some of the criminal-justice activists who attacked Harris most visibly and aggressively last year over her choices as a prosecutor say Harris’ record in the Senate and recent advocacy against police brutality has moderated their opinions.
