What did Kamala Harris accomplish as a California senator and attorney general?

When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission.

As the Democratic party's presumptive presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris currently stands within striking distance of the White House. Accordingly, her tenure as both California's attorney general and senator is sure to come under increased scrutiny by Democrats eager to accentuate the positives of their candidate's record, as well as by Republicans hoping to exploit their opponent's potential weaknesses. With a decade of state-level service under her belt — she served as A.G. from 2011-2017 and as senator from 2017-2021 — Harris' performance as an elected official is fair game for dissection and, perhaps more importantly, prognostication as to what her presidency might look like.

Here are some of Harris' most noteworthy accomplishments as both A.G. and California's U.S. senator.

Health care

As a senator, Harris "spent much of her time focusing on mental health, telemedicine and drug pricing," with a particular focus on "maternal health — especially Black maternal health," Roll Call said. Harris was the "first senator to co-sponsor Bernie Sanders' bill, the Medicare for All Act of 2017," which would have "abolished private health insurance for all age groups" and established a "government-run single-payer system to benefit 'every individual who is a resident of the United States,' including undocumented immigrants," Forbes said. Ultimately, much of Harris' health care agenda as a senator "didn't particularly succeed," with many of her bills showing "little chance of passing in the then-Republican-led chamber," Politico said.

Criminal justice and reform

Harris has long been "criticized for her background as a tough-on-crime attorney general back in California," NPR said. As A.G. she "appealed a federal court ruling that would have effectively ended the death penalty in the state," The Marshall Project said. Her office also "fought to release fewer prisoners, even after the US Supreme Court found that overcrowding in California prisons was so bad that it amounted to unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment," Vox said. As California's top lawyer, she also pushed for statewide anti-truancy measures in which "some parents were arrested by local law enforcement and faced harsher penalties." She later expressed "regret" for the policy's "unintended consequences" in an interview with Pod Save America.

Harris' A.G. office also authored a legal brief denying gender affirming care for transgender inmates in state prisons — a position she attributed to having "had clients, and one of them was the California Department of Corrections. It was their policy." After learning of the policy, she "worked behind the scenes" and "got them to change the policy," Harris said.

As senator, Harris crossed the aisle to introduce a bail reform bill with arch-conservative Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky), promising to "reform a bail system that is discriminatory and wasteful" in a New York Times opinion piece. She was also a "major figure" in a House police reform bill in the summer of 2020, as well as one of the main sponsors of a bill to "make lynching a federal crime," NPR said.

Committee work

During her short time in the Senate, Harris "shined in hearings with her pointed prosecutorial questioning of witnesses," PBS News said. Her "assertive courtroom style" created some of her "most high-profile moments in the Senate," Roll Call said, citing Harris' questioning of both Attorneys General Bill Barr and Jeff Sessions "to make bigger points."

The environment

As attorney general, Harris "joined local prosecutors to bring criminal charges against operators of a failed oil pipeline that polluted roughly 100 miles of California beaches," Inside Climate News said. Although the case didn't end in any jail time for the perpetrators, "state and local officials collected millions of dollars on behalf of businesses and individuals who were harmed by the spill," said E&E News. She also "co-sponsored the resolution calling for a Green New Deal" and was "to the left of Joe Biden on the Green New Deal in 2019" when both were vying for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Immigration

As senator during her 2020 run for the White House, Harris "called for a path to citizenship for recipients of Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals program, best known as DACA," NPR said. She also was among the co-sponsors of a Democratic-led bill to "to expedite the reunification of separated immigrant families and promote humane alternatives for asylum-seeking immigrant families" in response to the Trump administration's hardline immigration policies. She additionally urged her colleagues to "reject President Trump's FY 19 funding request for a costly and ineffective border wall, new Border Patrol agents, and a large increase in U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel and detention beds" in a letter to members of the Senate Appropriations Committee in 2018.