I’m not surprised by former Vice President Joe Biden’s pick of U.S. Senator Kamala Harris, D-Calif., as his running mate. He promised a woman. In terms of name recognition due to her failed presidential campaign, she is better known than some of his other prospective choices. The fact she is a Black woman (also from Indian descent) gives the ticket a “historical first” element. At 55, she’s considerably younger than him.
Harris also has the uncanny ability to alienate voters on both the right and the left.
The Right Sees Her As Authoritarian
She reduces the First Amendment’s protection of our freedom of religion to freedom of worship.
Introducing the “Do No Harm Act” that guts the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, Harris said, “The freedom to worship is one of our nation’s most fundamental rights. That First Amendment guarantee should never be used to undermine other Americans’ civil rights or subject them to discrimination on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, or gender identity.”
She has an anti-Catholic bias. Harris expressed concern over Brian C. Buescher’s membership in the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic service organization. Buescher is an Omaha-based lawyer who was nominated by President Donald Trump to sit on the United States District Court for the District of Nebraska.
“In her questions to the nominee, Sen. Harris described the Knights as ‘an all-male society’ and asked if Buescher was aware that the Knights of Columbus’ opposed a woman’s right to choose’ and were against ‘marriage equality’ when he joined,” Catholic News Agency reported.
She appears all too willing to adopt a religious test for judicial nominees where membership in a mainstream Catholic organization like the Knights of Columbus can disqualify a nominee.
That is extreme.
Harris expressed her authoritarian bent over guns, saying she would issue an executive order to achieve gun control.
“If by my 100th day in office when elected President of the United States if the United States Congress fails to put a bill on my desk to sign with all of the good ideas or any of the good ideas then I’m prepared to take executive action because that is what is needed,” Harris told CNN’s Jake Tapper.
“Specifically, anyone who sells more than five guns a year will be required to perform background checks on the people they sell them to,” Harris added. “And this will be the most comprehensive background check policy that has ever been had in our country thus far.”
Harris also promised to direct the ATF to revoke the licenses of gun owners who failed to obey her edict.
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She doubled down on that during a presidential debate.
Harris also co-sponsored Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All plan, a plan that would cost taxpayers $32 trillion. She also wanted to eliminate private health insurance even if people liked their plan.
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Harris also wants to ban “hate speech” from social media.” We will hold social media platforms accountable for the hate infiltrating their platforms because they have a responsibility to help fight against this threat to our democracy,” Harris said during NAACP’s Fight for Freedom Fund Dinner in Detroit in May of 2019 according to The Observer.
Her Tough On Crime Approach Troubles the Left
Harris’ presidential campaign was essentially over when she was clobbered by U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, on her record as a prosecutor during a debate last summer.
Previously seeing a rise, her poll numbers tanked after that.
“Now Senator Harris she’s proud of her record as a prosecutor and she’ll be a prosecutor-president, but I’m deeply concerned about this record. There are too many examples to cite, but she put over 1500 people in jail for marijuana violations and then laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana,” Gabbard stated.
“She blocked evidence that would have freed an innocent man from death row until the courts forced her to do so. She kept people in prison beyond their sentences to use them as cheap labor for the state of California, and she fought to keep the cash bail system in place that impacts poor people in the worst kind of way,” she added.
Harris couldn’t refute Gabbard’s claim about blocking evidence in a death row case because it was true as The Sacramento Bee reported in their fact check of the claim.
Harris also could not refute opposing the repeal of cash bail because, as a prosecutor, she supported raising it.
As Attorney General of California, her lawyers argued against the release of prisoners to have cheap labor.
“Extending 2-for-1 credits to all minimum custody inmates at this time would severely impact fire camp participation — a dangerous outcome while California is in the middle of a difficult fire season and severe drought,” lawyers from Harris’s office wrote in a filing reported by The Washington Examiner.
Elizabeth Nolan Brown of Reason Magazine pointed out that she ramped up penalties and prosecution of drug crimes, prostitution, truancy, and other misdemeanor offenses. That is an unusual record for someone who says they champion criminal justice reform.
She threatened to jail parents if their student was truant to boost school attendance, The Washington Post reported.
“When she was the San Francisco district attorney, Harris took it upon herself to boost school attendance rates. She did this by threatening to prosecute parents whose kids missed too many school days without good reason,” Salvador Rizzo wrote for a fact check at The Washington Post.
“I believe a child going without an education is tantamount to a crime, so I decided I was going to start prosecuting parents for truancy,” Harris said in a 2010 speech.
While appearing tough on crimes, she wasn’t very effective.
While she was a District Attorney in San Francisco, the homicide rates for the city jumped.
Also, her conviction rate compared to other California big city district attorneys was subpar. She gave probation to a man who later murdered two people.