Kamala Harris Height, Age, Husband, Children, Family, Biography

Some Lesser Known Facts About Kamala Harris

• Kamala Harris’ mother was a Tamil of Indian origin, and her father is an African of Jamaican origin.

• Her name was given to her by her mother.
  

  A childhood photo of Kamala Harris with her mother

• After two years of her birth, Kamala and her parents relocated to Champaign, Illinois, where her parents took up a job at the University of Illinois.

• After staying in Illinois for several years, Kamala and her younger sister Maya left the place with their mother and came to California. Her father did not leave his workplace to shift with the family.
  

  Kamala (left) with her younger sister posing for a photo

• Kamala was enrolled at the Thousand Oaks Elementary School in Berkeley as she was placed in a comprehensive desegregation program, which aimed at reducing racial discrimination by mixing students from different races in a school.
  

  Kamala Harris’ photo taken when she studied at the Thousand Oaks Elementary School

• Her mother and father parted ways after Kamala turned seven years old.

• As a child, she joined a choir and used to sing in an African American Church (also known as Black Church) in Oakland. She also used to visit Hindu temples with her mother.

• According to Harris, she was inspired to enter politics and advocate for human rights by her maternal grandfather who believed in “progressive democracy” and “women empowerment.”
  

  A photo of Harris with her maternal grandfather and grandmother

• In 1976, she left the United States and moved to Montreal, Canada, after her mother got a job as a researcher at the Jewish General Hospital.
  

  Kamala (left) with her mother and younger sister

• There, Kamala enrolled in an English medium school as other schools were mostly French medium. She, however, had to change her medium from English to French after the Canadian government passed a law making it mandatory for foreign students to study at a French medium school.

• She started advocating for women’s rights from a very young age.

• At the age of 13, Kamala and her sister led a small protest march in Montreal after they were not allowed to play on a lawn which was next to their residential building.

• In her final year of school, Kamala asked a friend to live with her after she shared about her stepfather’s sexual abuse. Kamala also helped her friend to seek legal protection against her stepfather.

• While attending Howard University, Kamala worked as a clerk in the mail sorting room for California Senator Alan Cranston.

• She was also actively involved in extracurricular activities such as participating in debates and discussions, leading the Economics Society of Howard, and organising events for the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.
  

  A photo of Kamala taken in her young days

• She enrolled at the University of California’s Hastings College of the Law under a scholarship from the Legal Education Opportunity Program (LEOP). There, she was appointed as the Black Law Students Association’s president.
  

  Kamala’s photo with her mother and first-grade teacher taken during her law school graduation ceremony

• In her college days, Kamala organised and took part in many protest marches.
  

  Kamala Harris during a college protest

• In June 1990, she cleared the bar council examinations and joined the California Bar as an advocate.

• Initially, her family was hesitant to let her pursue a career as a law professional because of the common belief that a lawyer makes many enemies. However, they later allowed her to become a lawyer.
  

  A photo of Kamala taken in the late 1980s

• From 1990 to 1994, Kamala served in California’s Alameda County as a district attorney. She received a lot of appreciation from her peers and the public for her performance and service, especially in the field of human trafficking.

• She became a member of the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board in 1994.

• After that, she served in the California Medical Assistance Commission.

• Her appointment to several important California state commissions made headlines frequently as she was in a relationship with Willie Brown, the then Speaker of the California Assembly. Brown was 30 years older than her.

• For serving in the Medical Assistance Commission and Insurance Appeals Board, Kamala used to receive $80,000 over her salary as a prosecutor.

• In 1994, she left practising law for six months. Once she returned, she started working as a prosecutor in California.

• In 1995, she and Brown decided to part their ways as Kamala wanted a long-term relationship, whereas, Brown was not interested in a long-term relationship with her.

• She was appointed as an assistant district attorney in the San Francisco district attorney’s office in 1998.

• Soon after, she became the Career Criminal Division’s chief and oversaw the handling of the cases of homicide, burglary, robbery, and sexual assault.

• She was also one of the lawyers who endorsed the implementation of the Three-strikes law (a law to limit violence) in the state of California.

• She resigned from her position as a prosecutor in 2000 after being demoted by Darrell Salomon due to her opposition to the implementation of Proposition 21, which sought to prosecute juvenile criminals in adult courts based on the severity of their crimes.
  

  Kamala Harris’ photo taken while she was serving as a lawyer in the State of California

• Despite resigning, she fought against the implementation of Proposition 21 and succeeded in getting it scrapped.

• A few months after quitting her job, Kamala was employed by the San Francisco City Hall, where she worked under Louise Renne, the then-city lawyer.

• In September 2002, Kamala Harris started representing clients of neglected cases in the Family and Children’s Services Division.

• In the same year, she decided to run for the position of San Francisco’s District Attorney. Famous lawyers like Bill Fazio and Hallinan also contested for the same post. Her campaign was financially supported by many influential personalities.

• She won the elections and became the district attorney of San Francisco in 2003. She also became the first non-white American to get to the post.
  

  A US Supreme Court Judge administering oath to Kamala in 2004 after her appointment as DA San Francisco

• In 2004, tension between the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) and the Office of the District Attorney rose after Kamala refused to support the police’s demand of handing the death penalty to a gangster who murdered a police officer. She insisted on giving a life sentence to the criminal without the possibility of parole.
  

  Photo of the police officer who was shot and killed in 2004

• She was later criticised by the Senator from California for her decision.

• In the same year, she established the San Francisco Reentry Division with Lateefah Simon, a human rights activist. The program aimed to help first-time nonviolent criminals aged between 18 and 30 years to mix with society once they were out of prison.

• To complete the program, the offender needed to obtain a high school diploma, complete 220 hours of community service, attend parenting classes, and pass drug tests.

• The program was a success, and later, it was recognised by the US Department of Justice.

• Harris has taken several strict steps to reduce homicide in San Francisco.

• From 2004 to 2006, her office handed out punishments in more than 87 per cent of the homicide-related cases. The conviction rate for gun-related violence was around 90 per cent during the same time.

• In June 2005, she established a three-member staff environmental justice unit to deal with the offenders violating the environmental laws of the US. She established the unit in response to reports of trash dumping by wealthy industrialists in areas where low-income groups lived.

• In the same year, she was featured in Newsweek’s 20 of America’s Most Powerful Women list.

• In 2007, she contested and won the District Attorney elections without any opposition. As per sources, many candidates withdrew their names from the election due to Harris’ influence in San Francisco.
  

  A photo of Kamala taken while she was addressing the media while serving as a District Attorney

• After being re-elected, Kamala oversaw the case of Edmund Jew, who had falsified his residence documents to become San Francisco supervisor. Kamala prosecuted him and found him guilty of nine criminal activities.

• The case was rested in 2008 when Jew pleaded guilty.

• Under her leadership, the district attorney’s office initiated many anti-drug campaigns. The office also took over 1900 cases related to substance abuse. However, she received criticism for imposing a high penalty and sentencing people to prison for minor marijuana possession.

• Thereafter, Harris proposed a bill that allowed gun violence offenders to get bail as she believed that by denying bail, the government might provoke more such violence.

• To reduce gun crime, Harris’ office filed a petition in a court seeking a 90-day jail term for people who carried concealed weapons in public.

• After this, she created a gun crime unit within the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD). Many police officers claimed that Harris’ policies significantly reduced gun crime in the city.

• In 2006, after a transgender teenager named Gwen Araujo was killed, she conducted a two-day conference with law enforcement agencies and other government officials to discuss the methods to deal with the gay panic defence (a method in which the assaulter blames the queer victim for an unconsenting sexual approach leading to an assault).
  

  Kamala Harris during an event organised by the DA’s office

• This led to the adoption and implementation of the A.B. 1160 – the Gwen Araujo Justice for Victims Act by the state of California. It was adopted when Arnold Schwarzenegger was serving as the governor of the state.
  

  Kamala Harris with Arnold during an event in California

• Kamala Harris, SFPD Chief Heather Fong, and Mayor Gavin Newsom filed a petition in a court in August 2007 seeking the banning of gun exhibitions and shows that used to take place in San Francisco. According to the petition, such exhibitions resulted in an increase in gun violence in California.

• In the same year, she represented the state of California against an oil company whose oil tank collided with the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, leading to 50,000 gallons of oil spillage. The company paid California $44 million for oil cleanup and other damage charges.
  

  Kamala touring the coast line where the oil spillage occurred

• In 2009, the state of California implemented the 2004 San Francisco Reentry Program under the Back on Track Reentry Act, A.B. 750. This model was later adopted by the National District Attorneys Association (NDAA) and the prosecutor offices in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Atlanta.

• In 2010, she established the Hate Crimes Unit to provide safety to the queer community as well as provide speedy justice to the LGBTQ victims of hate crimes.

• Kamala has often spoken against the death penalty. In November 2010, she spoke in favour of replacing capital punishment with life imprisonment as it would save a lot of money, which, according to her, could be used to recruit more policemen to protect the citizens.

• During her tenure as the district attorney, San Francisco saw an increase in students dropping out of elementary schools. To prevent students from dropping out, Harris put together a task force. She also warned the parents of strict legal action if they allowed their children to drop out of schooling.

• Later, her office initiated legal proceedings against six parents on the same issue. With this, California became the first state in the US to prosecute parents after their kids left school studies.

• When Kamala was appointed as the DA of San Francisco, her salary was estimated to be $140,000. However, by the time she left the office, her salary was estimated to be $200,000.

• In 2010, Kamala competed for the position of the Attorney General of California. She had revealed her plans to run for the post in 2008.

• Many renowned and well-established businesspeople and politicians supported her candidature.

• In the primary elections, she received 7,62,995 votes and emerged victorious over her nearest rival Alberto Torrico.

• In the main elections, she defeated the Republican candidate Stephen Lawrence Cooley.

• Following her appointment as the Attorney General, Harris became the first woman, the first African-American, and the first South Asian American to take over the office.
  

  Kamala Harris after being sworn in as the Attorney General of California

• In 2010, Kamala received criticism for negligence after a District Attorney Office’s technician stole confiscated drugs from the evidence store. This resulted in many drug peddling-related cases being scrapped by the court of law as there was no evidence.

• In the same year, there was a bank foreclosure crisis in the United States which led to Harris establishing the Mortgage Fraud Strike Force.

• With the help of the strike force, she managed to recover $241 million from Quest Diagnostics and $323 million from the SCAN healthcare network. These fraudulent mortgage recoveries are considered to be one of the largest in the history of the State of California.

• Kamala played a vital role in getting relief money for Californian homeowners whose accounts were illegally foreclosed by five loan companies – JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, and Ally Bank.

• In 2011, she and 20 other attorneys established an eCrime Unit in the Justice Department. It was established after her office prosecuted a man for hacking into the Facebook accounts of women to download their “private photos.”
  

  Kamala Harris giving a speech as the Attorney General of California

• In 2012, Kamala declined the offer of several insurance companies to pay $2-4 billion as relief money after they illegally increased the interest rates of their customers. The companies ultimately paid $18.4 billion in debt relief and $2 billion in other financial assistance after Kamala threatened them with a lawsuit.

• In the same year, she asked technology companies such as Apple, Amazon, Google, Hewlett-Packard (HP), Microsoft, Facebook, and BlackBerry to display details of a user’s information that their applications store. She also asked the companies to reveal the information of the organisation with which they share the details.

• In 2012, Kamala Harris formed a Rapid DNA Service Team in the Bureau of Forensic Services which had the capabilities of conducting DNA sequencing four times faster.

• Soon after establishing it, she claimed that the team had completed sequencing the DNA samples of the prisoners in the database of the Criminal Justice Department, which was earlier backlogged due to slow sequencing speed.

• Thereafter, she oversaw the formation of the Privacy Enforcement and Protection Unit whose task was to protect citizens from cyber fraud, protect their privacy, and counter data breaches.

• In 2012, she visited Mexico, where she signed a deal with Marisela Morales, the then Attorney General of Mexico, to improve the sharing of crime data and inter-law enforcement agencies coordination.
  

  Marisela Morales (left) with Kamala Harris during an event

• In the same year, Harris and her sister sold the house that their mother had purchased in Oakland, California, for $710,000.
  

  Image of the house that was bought by Kamala’s mother in Oakland

• Thereafter, Harris worked on prosecuting many Californian outlawed gangs and clubs such as Tijuana Cartel, the Nuestra Familia, Norteños, the Vagos Motorcycle Club, the Crips, and the Mexican Mafia.

• Harris and her office presented a statistical report titled The State of Human Trafficking in California. The event where the report was presented was attended by the U.S. Secretary of Labor as well as the Attorney General of the US.

• She was instrumental in introducing the Homeowner Bill of Rights in 2013. The bill paved the way for Harris to get $268 million from Ocwen Financial Corporation, $470 million from HSBC, and $550 million from SunTrust Banks for illegally increasing interest rates of the home loans of their customers.

• In the same year, Kamala did not allow OneWest Bank, an investment-oriented band, to be prosecuted under the Homeowner Bill by an investigating agency in California.

• Kamala met her husband Douglas Craig Emhoff in 2013 on a blind date, which was set up by one of her friends. According to Kamala, she was initially reluctant to meet Emhoff; however, when she met him, she instantly fell in love with him.

• President Barack Obama came under a lot of criticism after he referred to Kamala as the “best-looking attorney general in the country.” He, however, later issued an apology for his remark as it was considered to be sexist.
  

  President Obama posing for a photo with Kamala

• Kamala later worked on recovering the mortgage-backed security deposits made by many California state government teachers and officials. She managed to recover $193 million from Citigroup, $210 million from S&P, $300 million from JP Morgan Chase, and over half a billion from Bank of America.

• Kamala’s office filed an amicus curiae (declaring the state won’t defend a case) in the Supreme Court in February 2013 after a same-sex couple filed a litigation against the 2008 Proposition-8, banning same-sex marriages in California. Kamala had earlier claimed the proposition to be unconstitutional.

• In the same year, she made a report titled In School + On Track. In it, she claimed that more than 250,000 students in California were “chronically absent,” causing a loss of $1.4 billion to the education system.

• In the 2014 Attorney General elections, Harris once again secured a victory over her rivals. This time, she defeated Ronald Gold in the elections.

• In the same year, she managed to acquire relief money worth $28.4 million from a retail company named The Aaron’s Company, Inc. for indulging in fraudulent activities. The company also paid civil penalties worth $3.4 million.

• She published a report titled Gangs Beyond Borders: California and the Fight Against Transnational Crime in 2014. It talked about the role of drugs, mafias, and guns in the rise of violence in the US.

• In 2014, Kamala filed a plea in the US Supreme Court, requesting that the court not grant immunity to certain religious institutes, known as Hobby Lobby. The plea was to prevent them from refusing to reveal the abortion applications they received on religious grounds as this could lead to other religious institutes demanding similar exemptions.

• Later, the Supreme Court upheld Kamala’s arguments and denied granting immunity to such institutes to withhold information based on religion. Kamala’s plea was supported by 15 states of the US.

• Kamala Harris represented the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2014 against a transgender inmate, Michelle-Lael Norsworthy, who claimed that CDCR did not provide her with adequate gender reassignment assistance.

• She was chosen by the government in 2014 to lead a delegation to Mexico to conduct a conference with the Mexican authorities on the use of technology to reduce transnational gang violence.
  

  Kamala Harris during an official trip to Mexico

• She filed a legal lawsuit in 2015 against Corinthian Colleges and accused them of falsely propagating their ads to lure low-income students into their colleges. The college ended up paying $1.2 billion as a penalty.

• In the same year, her office served a legal notice to Comcast for deliberately revealing the names of the customers who had subscribed to their Unlisted Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP). The company had to pay $33 million in compensation.

• When an American website named Houzz published call records of many Californians on its domain in 2015, Harris filed a lawsuit against the company as a result of which the company was asked to destroy all the call records, employ a privacy officer, and pay $175,000 to the affected citizens.

• In the same year, for assisting in the completion of the DNA sequencing backlog in California, Kamala’s office was awarded a grant of $1.6 million by the Manhattan District Attorney.

• In 2015, Harris passed a resolution that made it mandatory for all the cops in California to wear body cameras on their uniform while on duty.

• In the same year, she also implemented the Principled Policing: Procedural Justice and Implicit Bias policy under which cops were asked to be lenient while dealing with suspects. For this, she hired several Stanford University psychologists to train the cops. This policy aimed at improving the relations between the police force and the community.

• She has been criticised for her inappropriate approach in addressing the use of extensive brutality by the cops. In 2015, she voted against a judicial bill seeking the appointment of a special judicial officer to investigate the incidents where police used brutal methods of dealing with suspects, leading to deaths.

• Thereafter, she worked with the Department of Justice and introduced a new police recruitment policy under which special agents from different races and ethnicities were recruited as a confidence-building measure.

• She then filed a case against JP Morgan, accusing them of indulging in fraudulent activities to increase the debt of credit card users.

• Later, Kamala created an application named Open Justice, which gave real-time crime-related information and statistics to the residents of California.
  

  A snip of the dashboard of the Open Justice application launched by Kamala Harris

• As Attorney General, Kamala implemented her 2006 San Francisco Back on Track initiative throughout the state of California. For its trial, around 90 non-serious offenders from various prisons were chosen to undergo a resettlement program for 24 to 30 months.

• In 2016, Harris’ department began prosecution of an anti-abortion activist, who claimed to have acquired evidence against Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc. (PPFA) of selling aborted fetus tissues.

• She later launched an application especially for law enforcement agencies to allow the officials to track criminal justice information.

• In 2016, she led an investigation into the alleged human rights violation done by the Kern County Sheriff’s Department. The investigation started when The Guardian and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) exposed the department of using excessive force even to deal with small criminals.

• During her tenure as the AG of California, speculations regarding her appointment to the bench of the United States Supreme Court arose many times.

• In the same year, she contested the United States Senate election from the California Congressional district of the Democratic Party. In it, she won over her nearest rival Loretta Sanchez by a margin of 15,84,486 votes.
  

  A photo of Harris taken while she was attending a session in the US Capitol as a Senator

• In the elections, Kamala reportedly received funding from Steven Mnuchin for which she received criticism as Steven was involved in a mortgage fraud.

• According to Forbes magazine, when Kamala contested the 2016 elections, she had between $250,000 and $500,000 in her savings account.

• She later overturned a judge’s order to remove all 250 prosecutors working on the 2011 Seal Beach shooting case after the DA, Tony Rackauckas, was found removing evidence against the shooter. She stated that the DA should be the one to face legal action, not the prosecutors.

• Thereafter, Kamala Harris played a vital role in prosecuting Carl Ferrer, the CEO of Backpage. Kamala alleged that Carl was involved in the prostitution of minors and the majority of the revenue that his website earned was by running sexually explicit commercials.

• In 2017, Kamala Harris voted against Steven’s appointment as the U.S. Treasury Secretary.

• Kamala left the office of the AG of California in 2017. Her salary as an AG was estimated to be $159,000.

• In the same year, when the US administration implemented the Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States (also known as Executive Order 13769), Kamala protested against it, calling it a Muslim Ban order as it banned Muslims coming from 7 Islamic countries into the US.

• John F. Kelly, the then White House Chief of Staff, got angry with Kamala as she rang him at his home after working hours to get information on the order. She spoke of her interaction with Kelly, in an interview, and said,
  

  He said gruffly, Why are you calling me at home with this? That was his chief concern. By the time we got off the phone, it was clear that he didn’t understand the depth of what was going on. He said he’d get back to me, but he never did.”

• In February 2017, she once again spoke against the Trump administration, asking for the Secretary of Education Jeff Sessions to resign as he violated the laws by unofficially meeting Sergey Kislyak, the then-Russian Ambassador to the United States.

• After President Trump removed James Brien Comey Jr. from his post as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in May 2017, Kamala registered an official protest against the decision, claiming the removal to be politically motivated.

• In the same year, she presented a bill in the Senate against the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which banned any government organisation from intervening in the religious practices of a US citizen or an organisation. However, the bill was rejected.

• In January 2018, when Al Franken, a Senator, resigned from his post due to sexual misconduct allegations, Kamala Harris replaced him as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

• Later, when President Trump passed a law under which minor kids were separated from their parents, who were caught illegally entering the US, Kamala Harris organised a protest march against it.
  

  Kamala Harris participating in a protest rally against Donald Trump

• In June 2018, Harris made an official announcement of running for the post of the President of the United States and contesting the primary Presidential Democratic Party elections.

• A day after her announcement, she set the record for getting the highest amount of donations made to any Presidential candidate for primary elections.

• She voted against the appointment of Brett Kavanaugh as the Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the US in September 2018.

• According to sources, Kavanaugh did not answer Harris’ questions about his dealings with a law firm named Kasowitz Benson Torres, owned by the personal attorney of Donald Trump.
  

  A snippet of a news clip showing Kamala Harris questioning Brett in the Senate

• She later questioned the director of the FBI on his “limited scope” in the investigation of a sexual assault case against Kavanaugh.

• In the latter part of 2018, a mail was sent to Harris at her residential address which contained a pipe bomb. However, the mail got intercepted by law enforcement agencies before it could reach its destination.

• Later, Harris put forward the Justice for Victims of Lynching Act in the Senate. However, the bill was rejected.

•  In March 2019, Harris and a few other Senators called for a report on the alleged interference of the Russian Federation in the 2016 Presidential elections.

• After a report was created, Harris demanded that the report should be summarized and presented in the Senate by the then-U.S. Attorney General William Barr.

• After Barr presented a summary in the Senate, Harris along with 12 other Democrats signed a petition seeking action against Barr for knowingly misinterpreting the report and presenting wrong facts in the Senate.

• When Barr was questioned by the Senate Judiciary Committee in May 2019, Kamala Harris also participated in the questioning. During the hearing, Kamala proved that Barr had misrepresented the facts as he had not examined the evidence in the report.

• After her confrontation with William, President Trump openly referred to her as “nasty.” He, in an interview, said,
  

  She was very very nasty, to — one of the reasons that surprised me, she was very — she was probably nastier than even Pocahontas to Joe Biden.”

• Kamala has not only raised her voice against the suppression of human rights in the US but also against many Asian countries. In June 2019, Kamala formally requested the US President to investigate the alleged human rights violations of Uyghur Muslims residing in China.

• In the same year, she accused the Republicans of suppressing the voters during the 2018 gubernatorial elections in Georgia and Florida. However, many individuals (legal and law experts) dismissed her claims.

• In 2019, Kamala was joined by many Democratic Party Senators in demanding the resignation of Stephen Miller, the then White House senior adviser, after his emails to a far-right wing news website were leaked in which he was talking about white supremacist ideologies.

• Thereafter, Kamala, along with several Republican Party Senators, proposed a bill seeking to reform the bail application and granting system of the United States.

• A record was set in July 2019, after more than 20,000 people attended an event that she held to formally kickstart her presidential campaigning. According to Doug, they both expected only 5,000 people at the rally.
  

  A photo of the event in which more than 20,000 people took part taken from a drone

• Even though she belongs to the Democratic Party, Harris has spoken against her party members many times, including against President Joe Biden.

• Initially, Harris had an upper hand in terms of support from the public over Joe Biden. However, her popularity decreased manifolds after Joe defeated her in a one-on-one debate.
  

  A photo of Kamala Harris and Joe Biden taken while they were debating one another during primary Presidential candidate selection elections

• In one of the debates, Joe criticised Kamala for not allowing law enforcement agencies to conduct a DNA test of a prisoner who had been awarded the death penalty.

• It is also claimed that a group of American citizens formed a social media group called K-Hive to defend Kamala Harris against any sort of racial or gender discrimination.

• In May 2019, it was proposed at the Congressional Black Caucus that Kamala should run for the Vice President’s post.

• Kamala proposed withdrawing her nomination for the primary Presidential election in November 2019 as she reportedly ran out of funds to support her electoral campaign.

• On 3 December 2019, she withdrew her nomination and promised to support Biden’s bid for the Presidential elections.

• In the same year, she was criticised by her father for generalising all Jamaicans to be marijuana lovers by referring to them as “pot-smoking joy seekers.”

• In May 2020, following the murder of George Floyd, Biden decided to choose an African-American female Democratic politician as his running mate.

• By June 2020, speculations began emerging that Harris competed with Elizabeth Warren, Val Demings, and Keisha Lance Bottoms to be Biden’s running mate.

• Kamala was chosen by Biden as the Vice Presidential running mate on 11 August 2020.
  

  A photo of Kamala Harris with President Joe Biden

• With her election to the office of the Vice President, Kamala became the first woman, the first African-American, and the first Asian-American to take over the office.

• In the 2020 Senate elections, both, Republicans, and Democrats, had managed to secure fifty seats each, leading to a frequent stalemate between the two parties over the passing of bills in the Senate. This resulted in Harris frequently exercising her power as the VP to cast her vote to break the stalemate.

• She was named the Time Person of the Year in 2020.

• Her first tie-breaking vote took place in February 2021 when she voted in favour of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (also known as the COVID-19 Stimulus Package) as none of the Republican Senators cast their vote in its favour.

• She broke the record of her predecessor Vice President Michael Richard Pence after she cast the seventh tie-breaker vote in the Senate just six months after her taking over the post of Vice President.

• In the same year, when President Joe Biden ordered the US military to pull back the soldiers posted in Afghanistan, Kamala Harris defended the decision in public forums and claimed to play an important role in influencing Joe’s decision.
  

  Kamala Harris meeting US Army soldiers

• They both received a lot of criticism from many countries over their decision to withdraw troops. Many US citizens, especially military veterans, also criticised their decision.

• She was later allotted the task of leading a delegation to countries such as Mexico and Guatemala, where she discussed bilateral trade relations, inter-law enforcement agencies’ cooperation, and immigration policies.

• In Guatemala, Harris’ statement on dissuading illegal Guatemalan citizens to illegally enter the US gained a lot of attention. She said,
  

  I want to be clear to folks in the region who are thinking about making that dangerous trek to the United States-Mexico border: Do not come. Do not come.”

  

  Kamala Harris with her Guatemalan counterpart

• After the Biden administration cancelled a joint attack submarine project with the French in 2020, the relations between the US and France got strained as a result of which Kamala visited France in November 2021 to improve bilateral ties.
  

  French President with Kamala Harris during her trip to France

• In December 2021, Kamala’s popularity hit an all-time low. In a survey conducted by many independent researchers, only 28 per cent of Americans supported her as Vice President. One of the major factors behind the decline was her opinion about the public healthcare sector.

• While campaigning for the 2020 elections, Kamala Harris spoke in favour of abolishing the private healthcare sector as they charged a lot of money as compared to government institutions. However, she later denied having made such statements.

• She held the post of acting President for a few hours after Joe was admitted to a hospital due to health issues. With this, she made history as the first woman to serve as a President of the US.

• The United States Naval Academy (USNA) invited Harris to address the officer recruits as a commencement speaker in 2021. She became the first woman to have ever received an invitation to do so.

• In the same year, Harris was named in the Forbes magazine’s 50 Over 50 list.

• A video of Kamala went viral in 2021 in which she was seen running on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial building in Washington. Many people compared it with Sylvester Stallone’s iconic film Rocky in which he ran on the same steps.
  

  A side-by-side comparison of Sylvester and Kamala running on the steps of Lincoln Memorial

• Many White House junior staffers have claimed that seniors resorted to ill-treating the juniors under Harris as Harris often neglected this issue. This led to many people resigning from their posts.

• Harris has often criticised Israel over its alleged human rights violations in Gaza and Palestine. In March 2024, she released a statement criticising Israel for bombing the Gaza Strip which led to the death of many innocent civilians.

• She has also published many books including Smart on Crime: A Career Prosecutor’s Plan to Make Us Safer (2009), Superheroes Are Everywhere (2019), and The Truths We Hold: An American Journey (2019).

• She consumes alcoholic beverages occasionally.
  

  Kamala Harris holding a glass of alcoholic beverage during an event

• She likes animals a lot especially dogs,
  

  Kamala Harris with a dog

• Kamala holds the Third Baptist Church of San Francisco’s membership.

• Harris has a keen passion for cooking and likes to cook roasted chicken and roasted turkey often.
  

  Kamala posing for a photo with a roasted turkey that she prepared

• She has a collection of Converse Chuck Taylor sneakers.

• Harris likes to follow a strict schedule. She wakes up at 6 in the morning every day and then hits the gym for an hour to keep herself fit. She likes to do cardio exercises, lift water-filled bottles for weights, and do stationary cycling.

• She likes to have a bowl of Raisin Bran with almond milk along with tea mixed with honey and lemon for breakfast.

• In an interview, Kamala claimed that she supported the legalisation of marijuana and revealed that she smoked pot (marijuana) when she was in college. She spoke about it and said,
  

  I have. And I inhaled. I did inhale. It was a very long time ago but yes.”

• Her nickname Momala was given to her by her stepchildren after marriage. It is a combination of Mamaleh, Yiddish for mother, mom, and her name Kamala.

• Harris is an avid supporter of the LGBTQIA+ community and has participated in many pride parades with her husband.
  

  A photo of Kamala taken while she was attending a pride parade in 2024 with her husband

• Kamala has often referred to herself as a “progressive prosecutor.”

• She appeared in Time magazine’s annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2013, 2020, and 2021.
  

  Kamala Harris on the cover page of Time Magazine

• In July 2024, President Joe Biden announced Kamala as the next Presidential candidate of the Democratic Party.

• On 1 August 2024, Donald Trump targeted Kamala’s claims of being both Indian-American and African-American on social media. He shared a photo of Kamala Harris during her visit to her maternal grandparents in Chennai. He made the post shortly after saying “Kamala had turned African-American recently” during an event.
  

  Donald Trump’s post on Kamala Harris