Kamala Harris’s Impact on California Crime Policies: A Warning Sign for National Voters?
If what Kamala Harris has done to California is any indication of what she will do to the country, voters should be very concerned.
Harris, the state attorney general from 2011 to 2017, refused to take a position on two ballot measures that have come to define modern California — but her office produced favorable summaries for both, presumably boosting their approval.
Proposition 47 reduced felony thefts to misdemeanors when the stolen property was valued as less than $950.
Critics have blamed it for the subsequent surge in stealing, causing shopkeepers to lock up their merchandise or even give up and close stores that can’t stay open due to incessant looting.
Meanwhile, Proposition 57 allowed for the early parole of some criminals to lower the prison population by reintegrating violent offenders into society after serving only half of their terms.
For example, Smiley Martin, who later died in jail, was arrested in connection with a 2022 mass shooting in Sacramento after being released early under Prop. 57 “secret” credits.
A similar event occurred in 2021 when Aariel Maynor was arrested for murder after being released under the statute.
He was condemned to at least 150 years in prison. Harris’ office as District Attorney of San Francisco was disorganized. A crime lab scandal that occurred under her supervision nearly ruined her 2010 attorney general campaign.
She and her prosecutors were aware that testimony from one of their lab techs was compromised, but they never informed the defense attorneys.
Eventually, up to 1,500 drug prosecutions were dismissed.
It was the type of mismanagement that would carry over to her attorney general and US Senate positions, as well as, reportedly, the vice presidency.
Harris has portrayed herself as a progressive prosecutor who is challenging the previous generation’s tough-on-crime policy.
She was also known as a drug warrior, having detained approximately 2,000 marijuana and hashish criminals during her tenure as attorney general.
Shallow thinking
To demonstrate how schizophrenic her record is, Harris once led a war on truancy as district attorney, promising to “start prosecuting parents” for their children’s absences. (She then tried to backtrack, apologizing for her overzealousness.)
Her actions were never those of a finely nuanced thinker who sees angles others don’t and can shed light on previously impenetrable gray areas, but rather those of a policy carpetbagger who pursues politics over the law.
Harris’ DA and AG administrations were both shaped by her beliefs, but they also served as useful stepping stones for her political career as a Democratic “rising star.”
Local onlookers could tell Harris wanted to leave those roles and hope that her performance would be mostly forgotten, except for her social justice crusades.
That didn’t stop her from using her experience as a prosecutor to criticize Donald Trump during a campaign event earlier this week, demonstrating Harris’ ability to play the proper role at the right time to achieve a political advantage.
“Harris-ism” will not benefit our country since it is a difficult-to-classify kind of California lefty philosophy.