Re-elect Kamala Harris as attorney general — but demand more: Endorsement
Some politicians have to work a little harder to carry the burden of great potential. Such is the case for Kamala Harris as she plans a second term as California’s attorney general.
Although Harris receives the Los Angeles News Group’s endorsement for the Nov. 4 election, this has a lot to do with the sparse credentials of opponent Ronald Gold. The editorial board would like to see Harris be more aggressive in the job she holds and live down the suspicion that her real priority is to plot a safe path to higher office.
Her future is the subject of wide speculation. It is generally assumed Harris will run for governor in 2018. But she has been called a potential U.S. Supreme Court nominee. She was mentioned as a potential U.S. attorney general after Eric Holder announced his plan to resign; she said she is not interested. And, oddly, at one point this year a couple of British bookmakers posted odds against her winning the Democratic nomination for president in 2016, as if that were even a remote possibility.
If all of this didn’t raise the risk of distraction, Harris found herself in national headlines last year because of President Barack Obama’s ill-considered remark, at a fundraiser in San Francisco, that she “happens to be, by far, the best-looking attorney general in the country.”
Little of this talk about her future and the elements of her appeal is her fault. It’s flattering stuff, and it’s one of the reasons people pay attention to what she does and says. But it can cause problems if she believes her own hype and lets thoughts of the future get in the way of completing the tasks at hand.
She did not allay that concern when she spoke with the editorial board in a meeting Harris requested to tout state legislation she was proposing to curb school truancy.
Harris said the issue of truancy had been a passion of hers since she was San Francisco’s district attorney, because it puts kids on the path to failure and costs schools more than $1 billion a year in federal funding based on attendance. Two of Harris’ bills would have required the state Department of Education and local school boards to collect data on truancy and absenteeism in order to shape anti-truancy policies. But when she was asked what the data from a similar effort in San Francisco had shown, she seemed not to know or have thought about it.
Gov. Jerry Brown wound up vetoing those bills, saying the collection of data for analysis by state authorities wouldn’t get to the root of the issue. Brown did sign two other Harris-backed bills related to truancy.
It was hard not to conclude that Harris chose truancy as an election-season focus because it’s an issue without much political risk.
That caution extends to her unwillingness to offer clear plans on big California issues such as legislative corruption, prison overcrowding, capital punishment and marijuana legalization. Her office’s misleading wording of a pension-reform measure cost it a shot at the state ballot, pleasing Democrats’ union backers.
If she’s playing it safe, that’s partly because only a major screw-up could cost her the election against Gold. A private attorney and former deputy attorney general, the Republican Gold supports marijuana legalization and says he has a “libertarian bent.”
Re-electing Harris is the only choice. But Californians should ask for more from their attorney general. Her future prospects should depend on her performance in her present office.
Although Harris receives the Los Angeles News Group’s endorsement for the Nov. 4 election, this has a lot to do with the sparse credentials of opponent Ronald Gold. The editorial board would like to see Harris be more aggressive in the job she holds and live down the suspicion that her real priority is to plot a safe path to higher office.
Her future is the subject of wide speculation. It is generally assumed Harris will run for governor in 2018. But she has been called a potential U.S. Supreme Court nominee. She was mentioned as a potential U.S. attorney general after Eric Holder announced his plan to resign; she said she is not interested. And, oddly, at one point this year a couple of British bookmakers posted odds against her winning the Democratic nomination for president in 2016, as if that were even a remote possibility.
If all of this didn’t raise the risk of distraction, Harris found herself in national headlines last year because of President Barack Obama’s ill-considered remark, at a fundraiser in San Francisco, that she “happens to be, by far, the best-looking attorney general in the country.”
Little of this talk about her future and the elements of her appeal is her fault. It’s flattering stuff, and it’s one of the reasons people pay attention to what she does and says. But it can cause problems if she believes her own hype and lets thoughts of the future get in the way of completing the tasks at hand.
She did not allay that concern when she spoke with the editorial board in a meeting Harris requested to tout state legislation she was proposing to curb school truancy.
Harris said the issue of truancy had been a passion of hers since she was San Francisco’s district attorney, because it puts kids on the path to failure and costs schools more than $1 billion a year in federal funding based on attendance. Two of Harris’ bills would have required the state Department of Education and local school boards to collect data on truancy and absenteeism in order to shape anti-truancy policies. But when she was asked what the data from a similar effort in San Francisco had shown, she seemed not to know or have thought about it.
Gov. Jerry Brown wound up vetoing those bills, saying the collection of data for analysis by state authorities wouldn’t get to the root of the issue. Brown did sign two other Harris-backed bills related to truancy.
It was hard not to conclude that Harris chose truancy as an election-season focus because it’s an issue without much political risk.
That caution extends to her unwillingness to offer clear plans on big California issues such as legislative corruption, prison overcrowding, capital punishment and marijuana legalization. Her office’s misleading wording of a pension-reform measure cost it a shot at the state ballot, pleasing Democrats’ union backers.
If she’s playing it safe, that’s partly because only a major screw-up could cost her the election against Gold. A private attorney and former deputy attorney general, the Republican Gold supports marijuana legalization and says he has a “libertarian bent.”
Re-electing Harris is the only choice. But Californians should ask for more from their attorney general. Her future prospects should depend on her performance in her present office.
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