Will you be Kamala Harris President of the United States of America Part 2
Will you be Kamala Harris President of the United States of America Part 2
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00:00Vice President of the United States of America, Kamala Harris
00:05Will you be Kamala Harris President of the United States of America?
00:08Part 2
00:10We continue
00:11Harris has said life imprisonment without parole is a better and more cost-effective
00:14punishment than the death penalty, and has estimated that the resultant cost savings
00:19could pay for a thousand additional police officers in San Francisco alone.
00:23During her campaign, Harris pledged never to seek the death penalty.
00:27After a San Francisco Police Department officer, Isaac Espinoza, was shot and killed in 2004,
00:33U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer, Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown,
00:39and the San Francisco Police Officers Association pressured Harris to reverse that position.
00:44But she did not.
00:45When Edwin Ramos, an illegal immigrant and alleged MS-13 gang member, was accused of
00:50murdering a man and his two sons in 2009, Harris sought a sentence of life in prison
00:54without parole, a decision Mayor Gavin Newsom backed.
00:58In 2004, Harris recruited civil rights activist Latifah Simon to create the San Francisco
01:03Reentry Division.
01:05The flagship program was the Back on Track initiative, a first-of-its-kind reentry program
01:09for first-time nonviolent offenders aged 18, 30.
01:14Initiative participants whose crimes were not weapon- or gang-related would plead guilty
01:17in exchange for a deferral of sentencing and regular appearances before a judge over a
01:2312- to 18-month period.
01:25The program maintained rigorous graduation requirements, mandating completion of up to
01:29220 hours of community service, obtaining a high school equivalency diploma, maintaining
01:34steady employment, taking parenting classes, and passing drug tests.
01:38At graduation, the court would dismiss the case and expunge the graduate's record.
01:43Over six years, the 200 people graduated from the program had a recidivism rate of less
01:48than 10 percent, compared to the 53 percent of California's drug offenders who returned
01:53to prison within two years of release.
01:55Back on Track earned recognition from the U.S. Department of Justice as a model for
01:59reentry programs.
02:01The DOJ found that the cost to the taxpayers per participant was markedly lower than the
02:05cost of adjudicating a case and housing a low-level offender.
02:09In 2009, a state law was enacted, encouraging other California counties to start similar
02:15programs.
02:16Adopted by the National District Attorneys Association as a model, prosecutor offices
02:20in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Atlanta have used Back on Track as a template for their
02:24own programs.
02:26In 2006, as part of an initiative to reduce the city's skyrocketing homicide rate, Harris
02:31led a citywide effort to combat truancy for at-risk elementary school youth in San Francisco.
02:37Declaring chronic truancy a matter of public safety and pointing out that the majority
02:41of prison inmates and homicide victims are dropouts or habitual truants, Harris's office
02:47met with thousands of parents at high-risk schools and sent out letters warning all families
02:51of the legal consequences of truancy at the beginning of the fall semester, adding she
02:55would prosecute the parents of chronically truant elementary students.
02:59Penalties included a $2,500 fine and up to a year in jail.
03:03The program was controversial when introduced.
03:06In 2008, Harris issued citations against six parents whose children missed at least 50
03:11days of school, the first time San Francisco prosecuted adults for student truancy.
03:17San Francisco's school chief, Carlos Garcia, said the path from truancy to prosecution
03:21was lengthy, and that the school district usually spends months encouraging parents
03:25through phone calls, reminder letters, private meetings, hearings before the school attendance
03:30review board, and offers of help.
03:32From city agencies and social services, two of the six parents entered no plea but said
03:37they would work with the DA's office and social service agencies to create parental
03:41responsibility plans to help them start sending their children to school regularly.
03:46By April 2009, 1,330 elementary school students were habitual or chronic truants, down 23%
03:53from 1,730 in 2008, and down from 2,517 in 2007 and from 2,856 in 2006.
04:03Harris's office prosecuted seven parents in three years, with none jailed.
04:08In the 2010 general election, she faced Republican Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve
04:13Cooley.
04:14Harris was sworn in on January 3, 2011.
04:16She was the first woman, the first African American, and the first South Asian American
04:21to hold the office of attorney general in the state's history.
04:24Harris announced her intention to run for re-election in February 2014.
04:28On November 4, 2014, Harris was re-elected against Republican Ronald Gould, winning 57.5%
04:35of the vote to 42.5%.
04:38In 2011, Harris obtained two of the largest recoveries in the history of California's
04:43False Claims Act over excess state Medi-Cal and federal Medicare payments.
04:47In 2012, Harris leveraged California's economic clout to obtain better terms in the national
04:52mortgage settlement against the nation's five largest mortgage servicers.
04:57Harris worked with Assembly Speaker John Peres and Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg
05:01in 2013 to introduce the Homeowner Bill of Rights, considered one of the strongest protections
05:06nationwide against aggressive foreclosure tactics.
05:09In 2013, Harris declined to authorize a civil complaint against One West Bank, owned by
05:14an investment group headed by Stephen M. Nuchin.
05:17Harris was later criticized for accepting a donation from M. Nuchin.
05:21In 2015, Harris obtained a $1.2 billion judgment against for-profit Corinthian Colleges for
05:27false advertising and deceptive marketing targeting vulnerable, low-income students
05:32and misrepresenting job placement rates to students, investors, and accreditation agencies.
05:38Harris opposed California's ban on affirmative action.
05:40She asked the Supreme Court to reaffirm its decision that public colleges and universities
05:45may consider race as one factor in admissions decisions.
05:49In February 2012, Harris announced an agreement with Apple, Amazon, Google, Hewlett-Packard,
05:54Microsoft, Research in Motion, and Facebook to mandate the apps sold in their stores display
05:59prominent privacy policies informing users of what private information they were sharing
06:04and with whom.
06:05In 2015, Harris secured two settlements with Comcast totaling $59 million over allegations
06:11that it posted online the names, phone numbers and addresses of tens of thousands of customers,
06:17and discarded paper records without first omitting or redacting private customer information.
06:22In November 2013, Harris launched the California Department of Justice's Division of Recidivism
06:27Reduction and Reentry.
06:29Harris's record on wrongful conviction cases as attorney general has engendered criticism
06:34from academics and activists.
06:36After the 2011 United States Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Plata declared California's
06:42prisons so overcrowded they inflicted cruel and unusual punishment, Harris fought federal
06:47supervision, explaining I have a client and I don't get to choose my client.
06:51In September 2014, Harris's office argued unsuccessfully in a court filing against the
06:56early release of prisoners, citing the need for inmate firefighting labor.
07:00After being elected, Harris declared her office would not defend Prop 8, a state constitutional
07:05amendment providing that only marriages between a man and a woman are valid.
07:09And in February 2013 she filed an amicus curiae brief arguing Prop 8 was unconstitutional.
07:15In 2014, Attorney General Kamala Harris co-sponsored legislation to ban the gay and trans panic
07:21defense in court, which passed.
07:23Harris appealed a federal ruling in favor of a transgender inmate's request for sex
07:27reassignment surgery to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, arguing that psychotherapy
07:32and hormone therapy were sufficient medical treatment, although she said she ultimately
07:36pushed the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to change their policy.
07:41In 2019, Harris stated that she took full responsibility for briefs her office filed
07:46in this case and others involving access to gender-affirming surgery for trans inmates.
07:51In 2011, Harris urged criminal penalties for parents of truant children, allowing the court
07:56to defer judgment if the parent agreed to a mediation period to get their child back
08:01in school.
08:02Critics charged that local prosecutors implementing her directives were overzealous in their enforcement,
08:07and Harris's policy adversely affected families.
08:10Harris prioritized environmental protection as attorney general, first securing a $44
08:15million settlement to resolve all damages and costs associated with the Costco busin
08:20oil spill.
08:21In the aftermath of the 2015 Refugio oil spill, Harris toured the coastline and directed her
08:26office's resources and attorneys to investigate possible criminal violations.
08:31From 2015 to 2016, Harris secured multiple multimillion-dollar settlements with fuel
08:36service companies Chevron, BP, Arco, Phillips 66, and ConocoPhillips to resolve allegations
08:42they failed to properly monitor the hazardous materials in their underground gasoline storage
08:47tanks.
08:48In summer 2016, automaker Volkswagen AG agreed to pay up to $14.7 billion to settle a raft
08:55of claims related to so-called defeat devices used to cheat emissions standards on its diesel
08:59cars.
09:00In 2012, Harris announced that the California Department of Justice had improved its DNA
09:05testing capabilities, clearing California's DNA backlog for the first time.
09:10In 2015, Harris conducted a 90-day review of implicit bias in policing and police use
09:15of deadly force.
09:16In April 2015, Harris introduced the first of its kind principled policing, procedural
09:21justice and implicit bias training to help law enforcement officers overcome barriers
09:26to neutral policing and rebuild trust between law enforcement and the community.
09:31The same year, Harris's California Department of Justice became the first statewide agency
09:36in the country to require all its police officers to wear body cameras.
09:40In 2016, Harris announced a patterns and practices investigation into purported civil rights
09:45violations and use of excessive force by the two largest law enforcement agencies in Kern
09:50County, California.
09:52In 2016, Harris's office seized videos and other information from the apartment of an
09:57anti-abortion activist who had made secret recordings and then accused Planned Parenthood
10:01doctors of illegally selling fetal tissue.
10:04In 2011, Harris created the E-Crime Unit within the California Department of Justice, a 20-attorney
10:10unit targeting technology crimes.
10:12In 2015, several purveyors of so-called revenge porn sites based in California were arrested,
10:18charged with felonies, and sentenced to lengthy prison terms.
10:21In 2016, Harris announced the arrest of Backpage CEO Carl Furr on felony charges of pimping
10:27a minor, pimping, and conspiracy to commit pimping, alleging that 99% of Backpage's
10:33revenue was directly attributable to prostitution-related ads, many of which involved victims, sex trafficking,
10:39including children under the age of 18.
10:42During her term as attorney general, Harris's office oversaw major investigations and prosecutions
10:47targeting transnational criminal organizations for their involvement in violent crime, fraud
10:52schemes, drug trafficking, and smuggling.
10:55In summer 2012, Harris signed an accord with the Attorney General of Mexico, Mayor Isla
11:00Morales, to improve coordination of law enforcement resources targeting transnational gangs engaging
11:06in the sale and trafficking of human beings across the San Ysidro border crossing.
11:11After more than 20 years as a U.S. senator from California, Senator Barbara Boxer announced
11:16on Jan. 13, 2015, that she would not run for re-election in 2016.
11:22Harris announced her candidacy for the Senate seat the following week.
11:25Harris was a top contender from the beginning of her campaign.
11:28The 2016 California Senate election used California's new top-two primary format where the top two
11:34candidates in the primary would advance to the general election regardless of party.
11:38On Feb. 27, 2016, Harris won 78% of the California Democratic Party vote at the party convention,
11:46allowing Harris's campaign to receive financial support from the party.
11:50Three months later, Governor Jerry Brown endorsed her.
11:53In the June 7 primary, Harris came in first with 40% of the vote and won with pluralities
11:58in most counties.
11:59Harris faced Representative and fellow Democrat Loretta Sanchez in the general election.
12:04It was the first time a Republican did not appear in a general election for the Senate
12:08since California began directly electing senators in 1914.
12:12On July 19, President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden endorsed Harris.
12:17In the November 2016 election, Harris defeated Sanchez, capturing over 60% of the vote, carrying
12:23all but four counties.
12:25Following her victory, she promised to protect immigrants from the policies of President-elect
12:29Donald Trump and announced her intention to remain attorney general through the end of
12:332016.
12:342017 On Jan. 28, after Trump signed Executive Order 13769, barring citizens from several
12:42Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S. for 90 days, she condemned the order
12:48and was one of many to describe it as a Muslim ban.
12:50She called White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly at home to gather information and
12:54push back against the executive order.
12:57In February, Harris spoke in opposition to Trump's Cabinet picks Betsy DeVos for Secretary
13:01of Education and Jeff Sessions for United States Attorney General.
13:06In early March, she called on Sessions to resign, after it was reported that Sessions,
13:11who had previously stated he did not have communications with the Russians, spoke twice
13:15with Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak.
13:18In April, Harris voted against the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch to the U.S. Supreme Court.
13:24Later that month, Harris took her first foreign trip to the Middle East, visiting California
13:28troops stationed in Iraq and the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan, the largest camp for
13:33Syrian refugees.
13:35In June, Harris garnered media attention for her questioning of Rod Rosenstein, the deputy
13:39attorney general, over the role he played in the May 2017 firing of James Comey, the
13:45director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
13:47The prosecutorial nature of her questioning caused Sen. John McCain, an ex-officio member
13:52of the Intelligence Committee, and Sen. Richard Burr, the committee chairman, to interrupt
13:57her and request that she be more respectful of the witness.
14:00A week later, she questioned Jeff Sessions, the attorney general, on the same topic.
14:05Sessions said her questioning makes me nervous.
14:07Burr's singling out of Harris sparked suggestions in the news media that his behavior was sexist,
14:12with commentators arguing that Burr would not treat a male Senate colleague in a similar
14:16manner.
14:17In December, Harris called for the resignation of Sen. Al Franken, asserting on Twitter,
14:22sexual harassment and misconduct should not be allowed by anyone and should not occur
14:26anywhere.
14:27That's a wrap at this point today.
14:28Until next time, stay curious, stay informed, and keep exploring the world's incredible
14:33stories.
14:34Soon we will publish Part.
14:363.
14:37Thank you, for watching.
14:38I hope I added something to you.