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Born in Oakland, California, Harris graduated from Howard University and the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco. 

She began her law career in the office of the district attorney (DA) of Alameda County, before being recruited to the San Francisco DA’s Office and later the city attorney of San Francisco’s office. In 2003, she was elected DA of San Francisco. She was elected attorney general of California in 2010 and re-elected in 2014. Harris served as the junior U.S. senator from California from 2017 to 2021.As a senator, Harris advocated for stricter gun control laws, the DREAM Act, federal legalization of cannabis, and healthcare and taxation reforms.

In 1990, Harris was hired as a deputy district attorney in Alameda County, California, where she was described as “an able prosecutor on the way up”.In 1994, Speaker of the California Assembly Willie Brown, who was then dating Harris, appointed her to the state Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board and later to the California Medical Assistance Commission. In February 1998, San Francisco District Attorney Terence Hallinan recruited Harris as an assistant district attorney. 

There she became the chief of the Career Criminal Division, supervising five other attorneys, where she prosecuted homicide, burglary, robbery, and sexual assault cases – particularly three-strikes cases. In August 2000, Harris took a job at San Francisco City Hall, working for city attorney Louise Renne. Harris ran the Family and Children’s Services Division representing child abuse and neglect cases. Renne endorsed Harris during her D.A. campaign. 

In 2002, Harris ran for District Attorney of San Francisco, running a “forceful” campaign and differentiating herself from Hallinan by attacking his performance. Harris won the election with 56 percent of the vote, becoming the first person of color elected as district attorney of San Francisco. She ran unopposed for a second term in November 2007. 

Within the first six months of taking office, Harris cleared 27 of 74 backlogged homicide cases. Harris also pushed for higher bail for criminal defendants involved in gun-related crimes, arguing that historically low bail encouraged outsiders to commit crimes in San Francisco. SFPD officers credited Harris with tightening the loopholes defendants had used in the past. During her campaign, Harris pledged never to seek the death penalty, and kept to this in cases of a San Francisco Police Department officer, Isaac Espinoza, who was shot and killed in 2004; and of Edwin Ramos, an illegal immigrant and alleged MS-13 gang member who was accused of murdering a man and his two sons in 2009. 

Harris created a Hate Crimes Unit, focusing on hate crimes against LGBT children and teens in schools, and supported A.B. 1160, the Gwen Araujo Justice for Victims Act. As District Attorney, Harris created an environmental crimes unit in 2005. Harris expressed support for San Francisco’s sanctuary city policy of not inquiring about immigration status in the process of a criminal investigation. 

 

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