In Pitch For President, Sen.

Kamala Harris Focuses On Criminal Justice,

Inequality
California Sen. Kamala Harris says she was bent toward a career fighting for civil rights almost since
birth.

The Democrat is the daughter of an Indian mother and a Jamaican father who met at the University of
California, Berkeley, and were active in the movement during the 1960s.

"I was born realizing the flaws in the criminal justice system," she told NPR's Steve Inskeep.

Inspired by Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American to sit on the nation's
highest court, she pursued a career in law to help right the wrongs she saw. That ambition would
eventually take her from the San Francisco district attorney's office to the California attorney general's
office to the Senate. Now she hopes it will take her to the White House. She's seeking to not only
become the first woman to be president, but the first black woman.

Addressing inequality is a top priority for her. That includes her LIFT the Middle Class Act, a tax cut plan
that would give families making less than $100,000 annually a credit of up to $500 a month, saying that
"when we lift up the economic status of families, neighborhoods thrive, society thrives.'' ...

She tells NPR that it's a "false choice" to suggest that someone is either tough on crime or soft on crime.
Instead, she argues, people should be "smart on crime," pointing to public health as a model.

"If you want to deal with an epidemic — crime or health — the smartest and most effective and
cheapest way to deal with it is prevention first," she says. "If you're dealing with it in the emergency
room or the prison system, it is too late and it is too expensive. We have to be smart on crime."

Jessica TAYLOR, npr.org, March 2019