AMERICA−On August 11, former VP and Democratic nominee announced his VP pick as California Senator, Kamala Harris. Following the announcement of the Biden-Harris ticket, the two answered questions from reporters, some of which had already been answered when Kamala Harris was on the Presidential Campaign Trail.
Harris has been under scrutiny since this topic first came up in May 2019 during a series of CNN Town Hall events, then Presidential candidate Kamala Harris was on the campaign trail. CNN reporter Don Lemon was interviewing both she and Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT).
At that time, Bernie Sanders indicated that he believed all prisoners, even ones like the Boston Bomber, should be allowed to vote. Don Lemon then turned to Harris for her response.
“I agree that the right to vote is one of the very important components of citizenship and is something that people should not be stripped of needlessly, which is why I have been long an advocate of making sure that the formerly incarcerated are not denied a right to vote, which is the case in so many states in our country, in some states permanently deprived of the right to vote, And these are policies that go back to Jim Crow,” Harris continued.
“But people who are convicted in prison, like the Boston Marathon bomber, on death row, people who are convicted for sexual assault, they should be able to vote? Lemon asked.
“I think we need to have that conversation,” Harris replied.
A day later, another reporter asked Harris to expand upon her earlier remarks. Harris referred to the six million people who have already served their time that are unable to vote. The reporter then asked, “Well do you think that people who commit murder, terrorists, should be deprived of their rights?”
Harris said, “Yeah, I do. I’m a prosecutor. I believe there have to be serious consequences for the most extreme types of crimes.”
The other topic coming back to haunt Harris is the Crime Lab Scandal of 2010, while Harris worked District Attorney for San Francisco. At that time there was an ongoing investigation involving evidence tampering in the city’s crime lab. As a prosecutor, Harris also put many people behind bars for the same crimes she intends to lessen the sentences on now.
Former Presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard (HI-2nd) went after Harris for her practices as prosecutor while they were both on the campaign trail. “She kept people in prison beyond their sentences to use them as cheap labor for the state of California,” said Tulsi Gabbard. Fact-checkers later came back and said this was not true. Gabbard also accused Harris of raising bail amounts on those individuals who had gun-related charges.
“I’m concerned about this record of Senator Harris. She put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations and laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana.” – Tulsi Gabbard
