From the earliest days of her candidacy, one matter has loomed over Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential bid: her observe report with prison justice reform in the US.
On Tuesday, Harris — the Democratic nominee for the presidency — had an opportunity to deal with a few of the criticisms, in a city hall-style interview with radio host Charlamagne tha God.
It was additionally a chance for Harris, the previous lawyer common of California, to bolster assist among the many Black group.
Whereas the overwhelming majority of Black voters determine with the Democratic Celebration, current polls present their backing for Harris will not be as robust as in 2020, when fellow Democrat Joe Biden was working for president.
Harris took the offensive on Tuesday, in a short time steering the dialog in direction of correcting the report about her candidacy.
“Folks say you come off as very scripted,” Charlamagne started, within the first minute of their dialog. “They say you like to stick to your talking points —”
The vice chairman instantly jumped in. “That would be called discipline,” she quipped.
It was an obvious effort to attract a distinction between herself and her Republican rival Donald Trump, whose public appearances are sometimes described as rambling.
Harris continued to offer sharp rebuttals to criticisms of her public look as buttoned-up.
“What do you say to people who say you stay on the talking points?” Charlamagne requested.
“I would say, ‘You’re welcome,’” she replied.
Prosecutor previous below highlight
A former prosecutor who grew to become district lawyer of San Francisco after which lawyer common of California, Harris has lengthy confronted scrutiny for her method to prison justice.
On the marketing campaign path this election cycle, Harris’s allies have sought to leverage her background to the Democrat’s benefit, framing the race as a battle between “the prosecutor” and “the felon”.
Trump, in any case, has 34 felony convictions to his identify, after he was discovered responsible in Could of falsifying enterprise data in relation to a hush-money cost to an grownup movie actor.
Harris herself has leaned into that framing. On July 23, shortly after she launched her presidential marketing campaign, Harris struck a distinction between herself and Trump, who faces a complete of 4 prison indictments.
“Before I was elected vice president, before I was elected United States senator, I was elected attorney general of the state of California, and I was a courtroom prosecutor before then,” Harris informed a rally in Wisconsin.
“And in those roles, I took on perpetrators of all kinds: predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain. So hear me when I say, I know Donald Trump’s type.”
However critics have blasted Harris for that very same historical past as a prosecutor, with members of each the proper and left slamming her insurance policies.
Progressives, on one hand, have criticised her hard-handed method to points like pupil truancy: Harris famously championed a state regulation that might make dad and mom eligible for a misdemeanour if their baby had been chronically absent from college with out an excuse.
In 2014, Harris additionally opposed calls to implement an impartial system to overview the deadly use of power by police.
Critics on the time argued that native prosecutors work carefully with police and are subsequently unable to be goal when deciding whether or not to carry costs. Harris, nonetheless, stated, “I don’t think it would be good public policy to take the discretion from elected district attorneys.”
Her opponents on the proper, in the meantime, have accused Harris of being lax on crime and failing to adequately assist regulation enforcement.
Decriminalising marijuana
In her interview with Charlamagne, Harris sought to tamp down on the criticism in opposition to her by branding it the product of right-wing misinformation.
“One of the biggest challenges that I face is mis- and dis-information,” Harris informed the radio host. “And it’s purposeful. Because it is meant to convince people that they somehow should not believe that the work I have done has occurred and has meaning.”
Charlamagne, for his half, known as on Harris to reply a number of rumours swirling round her marketing campaign.
“One of the biggest allegations against you is that you targeted and locked up thousands of Black men in San Francisco for weed. Some said you did it to boost your career. Some said you did it out of pure hate for Black men,” he stated, asking: “What are the facts of that situation?”
Harris refuted the allegations, replying, “It’s just simply not true.”
She then pivoted to her work on decreasing penalties for marijuana possession, a problem that disproportionately impacts Black males.
A 2020 evaluation from the American Civil Liberties Union, as an illustration, discovered that Black persons are 3.64 instances extra more likely to be arrested for possessing the drug, in comparison with white individuals. The report, nonetheless, discovered no vital distinction in marijuana use between the 2 populations.
That distinction in arrest charges contributes to increased incarceration charges total for Black males within the US. The Pew Analysis Heart discovered that, in 2020, Black adults confronted 5 instances the speed of imprisonment as their white counterparts.
Referencing this discrepancy, Harris informed Charlamagne that she would decriminalise marijuana on the federal stage if elected president.
“My pledge is, as president, I will work on decriminalising it, because I know exactly how those laws have been used to disproportionately impact certain populations and specifically Black men,” she stated on Tuesday.
Roughly 24 states have already taken steps to legalise small portions of marijuana for leisure use. However on the federal stage, the drug stays unlawful, although the Biden administration has taken steps to decrease penalties.
In Could, as an illustration, Biden’s Justice Division initiated a brand new rule reclassifying marijuana as a “schedule III drug”, down from the very best rank below the Managed Substances Act’s five-tier system.
That reclassification made the drug acceptable for medical use. It additionally indicated a shift within the authorities’s place, to acknowledge that marijuana will not be as harmful as the opposite medicine in its earlier class, like heroin.
“As vice president, [I] have been a champion for bringing marijuana down on the schedule,” Harris informed Charlamagne. “So instead of it being ranked up there with heroin, we bring it down.”
Attacking Trump on ‘stop and frisk’
Harris not solely defended her prison justice work as “progressive”, however she additionally actively attacked her Republican rival Trump for insurance policies she warned can be detrimental to the Black group.
All through his marketing campaign, Trump has championed a crackdown on crime within the US, proposing insurance policies that critics warn might enhance using extreme power amongst regulation enforcement officers — and trigger the violation of civil liberties.
Final month, as an illustration, Trump floated the concept of getting “one real rough, nasty day” for regulation enforcement to deal with property crime with out restraint.
He has additionally pledged to strengthen police immunity from prosecution and push for elevated use of “stop and frisk” insurance policies.
“You have to do a policy of stop and frisk,” Trump informed the TV present Fox and Mates in August, envisioning a scenario the place a police officer recognises a suspect on the road. “Stop and frisk and take their gun away.”
Whereas the US Structure protects individuals from “unreasonable search and seizure”, advocates say “stop and frisk” insurance policies permit the police to go looking suspects in an un-intrusive method if they’ve a “reasonable suspicion” they could be armed or harmful.
However critics warn that “stop and frisk” has been used to racially profile individuals and harass them with out warrant or trigger. Some “stop and frisk” insurance policies have subsequently been struck down as unconstitutional.
Harris zeroed in on Trump’s assist for “stop and frisk” in Tuesday’s interview.
“My opponent”, she stated, would have “a formalised stop and frisk policy, for which he has said, if a police department does not do it, they should be defunded”.
“There is so much at stake” this election, she added, pointing to the potential dangers for the Black group, which has been disproportionately focused by such insurance policies.
Stress on Harris
Harris’s look on the radio city corridor with Charlamagne got here at some point after the Democratic candidate made one other main overture to Black voters, releasing an “Alternative Agenda for Black Males“.
That agenda outlined plans for decriminalising marijuana, selling cryptocurrency and offering a million “forgivable” loans for Black entrepreneurs.
If elected, Harris can be the primary girl — and the primary particular person of blended Black and South Asian descent — to win the White Home.
However whereas she carries a majority of assist amongst Black People, some pollsters see concern in how her numbers evaluate to the 2020 election. In that race, President Joe Biden carried 90 p.c of Black votes, in line with a survey from The New York Instances and Siena Faculty.
Against this, solely 76 p.c of the Black citizens plan to vote for Harris, Biden’s vice chairman, on this yr’s election. That’s a big drop — and the ballot confirmed even decrease numbers amongst Black males.
Solely 69 p.c backed Harris, in comparison with 81 p.c of Black girls.
Trump has tried to make beneficial properties in that demographic — and he has even publicly questioned Harris’s identification as a Black girl.
Throughout her city corridor on Tuesday, Harris confronted questions on her dedication to the Black group. One caller requested her about her “lack of engagement” with the Black church.
Harris refuted that declare too. She replied that she had grown up within the Black church.
“So first of all, that allegation is of course coming from the Trump team, because they are full of mis- and dis-information,” she stated. “They are trying to disconnect me from the people I have worked with and that I am from, so they can try to have some advantage in this election.”
