Kamala Devi Harris is an American politician and attorney serving as the 49th Vice President of the United States. A member of the Democratic Party, she served as a United States senator from California from 2017 to 2021, and as the attorney general of California from 2011 to 2017. Harris became the vice president upon inauguration in 2021 alongside President Joe Biden, having defeated the incumbent president, Donald Trump, and vice president, Mike Pence, in the 2020 election.
She is the United States’ first female vice president, the highest-ranking female elected official in U.S. history, the first African American vice president, and the first Asian American vice president. In 2003, she was elected district attorney of San Francisco. She was elected Attorney General of California in 2010 and re-elected in 2014. Harris served as the junior United States senator from California from 2017 to 2021.
Harris defeated Loretta Sanchez in the 2016 Senate election to become the second African American woman and the first South Asian American to serve in the United States Senate. As a senator, she advocated for healthcare reform, federal de-scheduling of cannabis, a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, the DREAM Act, a ban on assault weapons, and progressive tax reform.
She gained a national profile for her pointed questioning of Trump administration officials during Senate hearings. Harris sought the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, but dropped out of the race prior to the primaries. Former vice president Joe Biden selected Harris as his running mate in August 2020, and the Biden–Harris ticket won the November 2020 election. She was sworn in as Vice President on January 20, 2021.
Some of the best quotes from Kamala Harris are listed below.
- “Doing nothing while the middle class is hurting. That’s not leadership. Loose regulations and lax enforcement. That’s not leadership. That’s abandoning our middle class.” – Kamala Harris
- “Don’t give up – our country needs you now more than ever. This is a pivotal moment in the history of our country: Our ideals are at stake, and we all have to fight for who we are. We are all, and should be treated as, equals, but the disparity in terms of income and inequality, for women and women of color, is significant.” – Kamala Harris
- “Don’t pretend that you can just be oblivious to politics. You can’t. What you never do is break your personal code. Have a code and keep it. You should never compromise what your priorities are.” – Kamala Harris
- “Eighty-two percent of prisoners in the United States are high-school dropouts. A high-school dropout between the ages of 30 and 34 is two-thirds more likely to be in jail, or to have been in jail, or to be dead.” – Kamala Harris
- “Everybody will make mistakes, and for some that mistake will rise to the level of being a crime.” – Kamala Harris
- “Everyone’s perspective of themselves and others is based on the limitations of their exposure.” – Kamala Harris
- “Generally speaking, the public appetite for criminal justice policy is just tough talk.” – Kamala Harris
- “Getting smart on crime’ does not mean reducing sentences or punishments for crimes.” – Kamala Harris
- “I am a prosecutor in my bones. When I see something, I immediately go to: how is this going to affect a child?” – Kamala Harris
- “I believe in that old adage that ‘as goes California, so goes the country.” – Kamala Harris
- “I believe that a child going without an education is a crime.” – Kamala Harris
- “I could do all of my activities at Howard because it was an environment that had essentially rid the ideology of false choices that I feel absolutely constricts young black students.” – Kamala Harris
- “I have a difficult time sitting down for long periods.” – Kamala Harris
- “I have loved to cook since I was a child in my mother’s kitchen. If I don’t have time to cook, I’ll just read a cookbook.” – Kamala Harris
- “I love being in a courtroom.” – Kamala Harris
- “I remember when my mother, Shyamala Harris, bought our first home. I was thirteen. She was so proud, and my sister and I were so excited. Millions of Americans know that feeling of walking through the front door of their own home for the first time – the feeling of reaching for opportunity and finding it.” – Kamala Harris
- “I strongly believe that for serious and violent criminals, we must absolutely hold them accountable for their crimes and send them to prison.” – Kamala Harris
- “I think Hillary Clinton could do whatever she puts her mind to. I really do. She’s incredibly dedicated to public service, she is smart as a whip, and she’s effective.” – Kamala Harris
- “I think I have every piece of music Bob Marley ever made.” – Kamala Harris
- “I want to use my position of leadership to help move along at a faster pace what I believe and know the Obama administration wants to do around the urgency of climate change.” – Kamala Harris
- “I was raised to be an independent woman, not the victim of anything.” – Kamala Harris
- “I work out every morning. Only half an hour. I get on the treadmill. That’s it. Every morning, I don’t care what time. It gets your blood flowing. It gets your adrenaline flowing. I believe in eating well. It’s not fanatical. Eat good food. Make sure you’ve got good vegetables.” – Kamala Harris
- “I’m one of the luckiest people on Earth.” – Kamala Harris
- “I’ve been a proud mentor to many women seeking public office, because I believe we need more women at all levels of government. Women have an equal stake in our future and should have an equal voice in our politics. These are challenging times, but I believe getting more women to run for office is a big part of the solution.” – Kamala Harris
- “I’ve had the good fortune and blessing to run for the offices for which I really wanted to do the work.” – Kamala Harris
- “In every work environment, there will be politics. If you really want to rise to the top, you need to figure out what those politics in your workplace are. Then, you hook it in. You decide what conforms and what does not conform to your personal code.” – Kamala Harris
- “In order to find balance, I feel very strongly about two things in particular in terms of routine. Work out, and eat well.” – Kamala Harris
- “Let’s not build the policy around the abuse. That’s not good policy. That’s actually bad policy. Build the policy around the aspiration point. That’s what we need to do when we’re seeing abuse online.” – Kamala Harris
- “Mitt Romney subscribes to the cynical logic that says the American dream belongs to some of us but not all of us.” – Kamala Harris
- “My mantra about everything that has to do with public policy is: identify and reject the false choice.” – Kamala Harris
- “My mother had a saying: ‘Kamala, you may be the first to do many things, but make sure you’re not the last.” – Kamala Harris
- “My mother was and will always remain my greatest hero.” – Kamala Harris
- “No woman should be told she can’t make her own decisions about her body. If women’s reproductive rights come under attack, I will be standing up for women.” – Kamala Harris
- “The American dream belongs to all of us.” – Kamala Harris
- “There is a lot of work to be done to make sure our leaders reflect the people they are supposed to represent. The more diverse a group of decision makers is, the more informed the decision will be. Until we achieve full representation, we all should understand we are falling short of the ideals of our country.” – Kamala Harris
- “These days, children can text on their cell phone all night long, and no one else is seeing that phone. You don’t know who is calling that child.” – Kamala Harris
- “To change criminal justice policy in any meaningful way means to propose changing a very longstanding system. It’s not realistic to think you can do it overnight.” – Kamala Harris
- “We need to incorporate that age-old concept of redemption into the work that we do in the criminal justice system in California.” – Kamala Harris
- “What we all want is public safety. We don’t want rhetoric that’s framed through ideology.” – Kamala Harris
- “What we know is smartphones are everywhere and they are rich in data. What we know is that there are apps once downloaded by the consumer that will also in turn download the consumers’ contact book. Most consumers don’t want that to happen and don’t know it’s happening.” – Kamala Harris
- “What’s important for my daughter to know is that… if you are fortunate to have opportunity, it is your duty to make sure other people have those opportunities as well.” – Kamala Harris
- “When you expand your ability to see, you understand that there are a lot of false choices being offered.” – Kamala Harris
- “With the advent of DNA, we know that people have been convicted and sentenced to death who later proved not to be guilty of the crime.” – Kamala Harris
- “Women should not allow themselves to be caught up in the hype that says performance, meaning the motions, is what matters.” – Kamala Harris
- “You don’t have to care about children to care about children. One of the things that I talk a lot about is the fact of the importance of third-grade reading level. By the end of third grade, if the child is not at reading level, it’ll drop off. They never catch up.” – Kamala Harris
- “You got to take care of yourself. If I exercise or I eat proper foods, am I indulging myself? That’s called feeding your body.” – Kamala Harris
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