In a history-making senatorial victory, the California attorney general won out over opponent Loretta Sanchez to become the state’s first African-American senator and the country’s first black female senator since 1999. The litany of praise that follows her name and subsequent victory comes as no surprise. As attorney general, Harris championed California victims of mortgage fraud, bringing about a ruling of more than $20 billion in relief for homeowners, along with fighting against crime organizations and elementary school truancy. And the Democratic senator-elect’s win is as stunning as the woman herself.
Kamala Harris (born October 20, 1964) is an American lawyer, politician, and member of the Democratic Party, who has been the 32nd and current Attorney General of California since 2011.
Harris graduated from Howard University and University of California, Hastings College of the Law. She worked as a Deputy District Attorney in Alameda County, California, from 1990 to 1998. She served as Managing Attorney of the Career Criminal Unit in the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office, from 1998 to 2000, and as Chief of the Community and Neighborhood Division in the office of San Francisco City Attorney, from 2000 to 2003. In 2003, she was elected District Attorney of San Francisco, defeating incumbent Terence Hallinan. She was re-elected in 2007 and served from 2004 to 2011.
Harris was elected California’s Attorney General in 2010 and was re-elected in 2014. Harris is the first female, the first African-American, the first Indian-American, and the first Asian-American attorney general in California. On November 8, 2016, she became the first Indian-American and second African-American female to serve in the United States Senate, defeating Loretta Sanchez in the 2016 election to replace outgoing Democratic senator Barbara Boxer.
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