Being tough may backfire on her

Los Angeles, Aug. 12: Joe Biden’s choice of Kamala Harris as his running mate was hailed on Tuesday as a historic for first woman of colour, but some warn her record as a tough prosecutor could dent her appeal with two key constituencies — coloured voters and liberals.

Harris, the first woman and the first woman of colour attorney general in the history of the Golden State, portrayed herself as a progressive reformer during her own presidential bid, but some have cast doubts on that claim.

“Time after time, when progressives urged her to embrace criminal justice reforms as a district attorney and then the state’s attorney general, Ms Harris opposed them or stayed silent,” law professor Lara Bazelon wrote last year in an op-ed for The New York Times.

“Harris turned legal technicalities into weapons so she could cement injustices,” added Bazelon, a former director of the Loyola Law School Project for the

Innocent in Los Angeles.

Before serving as attorney general, the 55-year-old Harris was the district attorney in San Francisco. She was elected to the Senate in 2016.

“Kamala Harris had a reputation in California as a prosecutor and attorney general who waited rather than led, who moved on controversial issues only once she saw what was politically viable,” the daily Sacramento Bee wrote in a June editorial.

As concerns police brutality — a subject very much in the news following the death of George Floyd, whose killing at the hands of police in May sparked nationwide protests — Harris has also been criticised for failing to intervene in cases involving police violence.

While serving as attorney general in 2016, for example, she opposed a bill to investigate deadly police shootings following the death of a stabbing suspect — shot 21 times by police — that sparked huge protests. —