Time - USA (2020-12-21)

56 Time December 21/December 28, 2020

every station in her career, she broke a barrier. In
2004, she was elected San Francisco DA; six years
later, she was elected attorney general of California.
The balance between “progressive prosecutor” and
“top cop” was a delicate one. She implemented new
programs for young nonviolent offenders, yet began
enforcing truancy laws by threatening parents with
fines if their kids missed school. Even in the 2020
campaign, Harris seemed to be juggling allegiances,
down to her campaign slogan, “For the People,” in­
tended to evoke her prosecutorial roots while blur­
ring their controversial connotations.
Like Biden, she had a knack for sensing where
the political wind was blowing and sometimes dis­
appointed liberal activists. She sought to uphold
questionable convictions, declined to support leg­
islation to reduce low­level felonies to misdemean­
ors and tried to reinstate the death penalty, even
though she claimed to oppose it. At the same time,
she earned accolades on the left for taking on oil com­
panies, for­profit colleges and predatory mortgage
lenders, and for refusing to defend California’s ban
on gay marriage. As a newly minted attorney gen­
eral in 2011, she pulled out of a national mortgage­
foreclosure settlement with five big banks when she
felt the approximately $2 billion allotted for Califor­
nia didn’t give her constituents adequate restitution.
Ultimately she procured a $20 billion settle ment.
“The fact that she was an AG and had her fingers on
every aspect of governance in California will help her
in every role she takes in the federal government,”
says Doug Gansler, a former Maryland attorney gen­
eral who served with her during this time.
Harris arrived in the Senate in 2017, the first In­
dian American in its history. Already a political celeb­
rity, she impressed colleagues as much with her infec­
tious laugh as with her ruthless probing of witnesses.
Then–Attorney General Jeff Sessions complained
that her rapid­fire questions made him “nervous”;
she reduced the current Attorney General, Bill Barr,
to stammering when she asked if the White House
had ever asked his Justice Department to investigate
anyone. In September 2018, her calm but pointed
grilling of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kava^ naugh
went viral, enhancing her reputation on the left.
Harris played an integral role in that year’s bipar­
tisan criminal­justice legislation and co­ sponsored
the liberal Green New Deal. Though she built a rep­
utation as a serious policymaker, she never carved
out a signature issue and seemed to elude ideologi­
cal definition. She spent just two years in the Senate
before launching her bid for President.

After clinching the nominAtion, Biden set
to uniting his party. He won Sanders’ endorsement,
solicited advice from Senator Elizabeth Warren and
invited well­known progressives to offer policy ideas.
“Biden’s ability to hold the party together can’t be

2020 Person of the Year

On Aug. 11, mAny Of us were wAiTing wiTh cOnsiderAble

suspense to find out whom Joe Biden would pick to be his running

mate. A video that shows him calling Kamala Harris goes like this:

Biden: All right.

We see him taking off his mask. Then we hear Harris’ voice on

the line.

Harris: Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi! Sorry to keep you.

Biden: No, that’s all right. You ready to go to work?

There is silence. About three seconds of absolute silence.

Harris: Oh my God. I’m so ready to go to work.

Biden: First of all, is the answer yes?

Harris: The answer is absolutely yes, Joe. And I am ready to

work.

When KAmAlA hArris becomes the Vice President of the

United States in January, she will be, as has been frequently

noted, a first—the first woman, the first Black person and the

first Indian­American person to hold this office. But while it is

worth celebrating that the top leadership of the U.S. will better

mirror its people, it is important to remember that simply

naming these identities does not tell us all we need to know.

It’s within the particulars of her lived experience as a Black and

Indian­American woman that we can truly understand who she

is today and what she brings with her to the White House.

WHAT SHE BRINGS

Kamala Harris is a first. But she

stands on a solid foundation

By Anna Deavere Smith

COURTESY KAMALA HARRIS

Harris

with her

younger

sister Maya

and mother

Shyamala

Gopalan in

1968