Harris a politician now, but always a prosecutor
Supporters of Sen. Kamala Harris have been calling me to ask if she’s coming across as too strident in her questioning of Justice Department officials testifying before the Intelligence Committee.
“You know, she seems kind of mean,” one caller said.
“She’s not mean,” I said. “She’s just being Kamala.”
Unlike many politicians, Harris did not work her way up the ladder in the glad-handing world of city councils and the Legislature. She came into the Senate via the courthouse, first as a front-line prosecutor and then district attorney in San Francisco, followed by six years as state attorney general.
She is a dead-on prosecutor, and when she goes
into that mode, watch out. She is out for blood.
Harris’ no-nonsense style was on full display in her grilling of Attorney General Jeff Sessions during a committee hearing last week on the issue of Russian interference in the 2016 campaign. Harris wanted to know exactly what policy Sessions was relying on in refusing to answer questions about his conversations with President Trump.
Sessions kept trying to dodge the question by being his Southern gentlemanly evasive self. At that point, under the unwritten club rules of the Senate, Harris was expected to be equally courteous and politely back off.
But Harris doesn’t care about Senate courtesy. She has no interest in being in their club. Or any club. I remember back when she was first elected D.A., here in San Francisco. We had been very close, but she made a point of telling one of my buddies: “You tell that Willie Brown that while I’m D.A. he’d better even consider jaywalking a capital offense.”
And she meant it.
Former hedge fund titan and possible gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer hosted a breathtaking fundraiser to help the Bob Woodruff Foundation with its work for wounded veterans and their families at his Sea Cliff home the other night.
I say “breathtaking” because the front yard of the Steyer home is basically the Golden Gate Bridge. Steyer was so impressed with the view that he bought the house next door as well.
The funny thing is, the home sat empty for more than a year after Steyer bought it.
“It needed that much work?” I asked.
No. Steyer told me he was ready to move in, but that it took him 18 months to work up the nerve to tell his wife, Kathryn Taylor, about the purchase.
She was in love with their life on the Peninsula, and he couldn’t quite find the right moment to tell her.
Then one day, he was at a party when a woman came up to him and asked him how he liked his new house.
Steyer replied, “What are you talking about?”
She said Steyer’s son had been throwing parties there for a year or so. Big-time parties, at least one a month, and that her son had been one of the partygoers.
So Steyer went to his son and asked, “Have you been giving parties at Sea Cliff ?” He said, “Yeah.” “How did you know about the house?” Steyer asked.
“Mom. She gave me a key.”
Some 300 people gathered at Point Richmond to bid a final farewell to former Assemblyman Jack Knox, who represented Contra Costa County up in Sacramento for 20 years.
Back in the day, Knox made the mistake of crossing swords with then-Assembly Speaker Jesse Unruh. He quickly found himself bumped off his perch on the penthouse committee that drew up laws for the banking insurance industry to the decidedly less posh committee that handled state interaction with local government.
The demotion turned out to be a real gift for the people of California. The dogged Knox crafted some of the most significant legislation of the modern era, including the creation of the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission.
But you know, politicians are funny creatures. No matter their accomplishments in office, what comes after can be a bigger deal to them.
At the memorial, former Assemblyman Bill Bagley said he was having a drink one day with Knox years after they both left politics, when out of the blue, Knox said, “Bill, I think my stretch of freeway is longer than your freeway.”
The next time they got together, Knox told him, “I checked. Your stretch is 6.8 miles. Mine is 8.1 miles. So clearly mine is longer.”
“He was 92, and I’m 91,” Bagley said. “Just think how impressive it was for two old guys to be arguing about who has the longest ... freeway.”
Movie time: “Churchill,” set in World War II during the run-up to D-Day. Worth seeing, but don’t go the theater tired. Your snoring might bother the other customers.
In March, I made a pitch in this space for help on lighting up the Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park.
Well, on Wednesday, we are going to flip the switch. About 8:30 p.m., just as it gets dark. So come to the park and check it out. Mayor Ed Lee, Chief of Protocol Charlotte Shultz and I will greet you. The first colors may be champion Warriors blue and gold.
One of my readers chimed in that while some people refer to Trump as “POTUS,” as in the President of the United States, it might be more appropriate if we went with, “The Donald of the United States.”
“DOOFUS” for short.