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Biden’s VP pick Kamala Harris is 1st woman of color on major party ticket despite call to 'politely decline'

Her career began as a district attorney of San Francisco, and later as California attorney general. Her early experience with law enforcement seems particularly essential in her selection

The Democratic Party candidate for the U.S. Presidential Elections, Joe Biden, finally announced his running mate on Tuesday, August 11. He chose Senator Kamala Harris. Biden tweeted, “I have the great honor to announce that I’ve picked @KamalaHarris -- a fearless fighter for the little guy, and one of the country’s finest public servants -- as my running mate.”

He further wrote, “Back when Kamala was Attorney General, she worked closely with Beau. I watched as they took on the big banks, lifted up working people, and protected women and kids from abuse. I was proud then, and I'm proud now to have her as my partner in this campaign.”

Harris, after the announcement, wrote on Twitter, "@JoeBiden can unify the American people because he's spent his life fighting for us. And as president, he'll build an America that lives up to our ideals. I'm honored to join him as our party's nominee for Vice President, and do what it takes to make him our Commander-in-Chief."

The announcement was big for plenty of reasons, and not least because the Biden campaign has kept people on the edge of their seats for a long time now, making them wait for the Vice Presidential nominee. Harris is the first Black woman to be named to a major-party U.S. presidential ticket. She will be the first woman vice president if Biden defeats President Donald Trump in the polls.

Harris, the junior senator from California, ran against Biden in the Democratic presidential primaries. She dropped out of the presidential race in December, and on March 8, she endorsed Biden’s candidacy despite criticizing him in the Democratic primaries. “Joe Biden has to win this election,” Harris said in June. “We have two choices, Joe Biden and Donald Trump. We need to elect Joe Biden.”

Her career began as a district attorney of San Francisco, and later as the California attorney general. Her early experience with law enforcement is particularly essential in her selection. After all, in the last few months, the U.S. has witnessed nationwide protests asking for the overhaul of the criminal justice system in the wake of George Floyd's death and the issue of racial brutality at the hands of the police. In fact, Harris has held a tough stance on police reform in the last couple of months, which includes co-authoring a Senate bill to ban police chokeholds. Harris also lends racial diversity and gender parity to the Biden campaign.

“We’ve all watched her hold the Trump administration accountable for its corruption, stand up to a Justice Department that’s run amok, and be a powerful voice against their extreme nominations,” said Biden in a statement on Tuesday. “She’s been a leader on criminal justice and marriage equality. And she has focused like a laser on the racial disparities as a result of the coronavirus,” Biden said.

But Harris’ nomination has also been a complicated one. Biden has been under public pressure, especially from more leftist factions for Biden to pick Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, California Representative Karen Bass, and former Barack Obama national security adviser Susan Rice. 

At the same time, on August 8, former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown urged his ex-girlfriend, Harris, to reject Biden’s offer to be his running mate, in an op-ed published in the San Francisco Chronicle. Brown advised Harris to “politely decline” Biden’s vice presidential offer, arguing that she should instead aim for U.S. attorney general.

“Harris is a tested and proven campaigner who will work her backside off to get Biden elected. That said, the vice presidency is not the job she should go for — asking to be considered as attorney general in a Biden administration would be more like it,” Brown wrote. “Historically, the vice presidency has often ended up being a dead end. For every George H.W. Bush, who ascended from the job to the presidency, there’s an Al Gore, who never got there.”