The Daily Item
August 1, 2024
On November 5, the United States is poised to achieve a monumental milestone with the election of our first female president. Vice President Kamala Harris is the presumptive Democratic candidate for the highest elective office in our nation and, contrary to claims from Republicans, is eminently qualified to assume this office.
After earning a bachelor’s degree in political science and economics at Howard University and her legal degree at the University of California, she served as a prosecuting attorney before being elected as the district attorney for San Francisco.
In 2011, she became the first Black American, first woman, and first South Asian American to be elected attorney general for the State of California. Four years later, in 2015, Harris was elected to the United States Senate. She served on the Senate Judiciary Committee as well as the Select Committee on Intelligence, where she gained wide-ranging government and foreign policy experience.
In 2019, she was selected by President Joe Biden to be his running mate and was elected as the first female vice president of the United States, a position she currently holds.
Throughout her career, Harris has been a champion for civil rights, voting rights, women’s rights, democracy, and the rule of law. She has been instrumental in fighting for the freedom of women to make decisions about their own bodies, efforts to reduce gun violence, the freedom for everyone to vote, affordable health care, and environmental programs to provide clean water and clean air.
As president of the Senate, Harris presided over the unprecedented vote to confirm the first Black woman, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, to the Supreme Court. She also worked alongside Biden to achieve historic representation of women and people of color among nominees at all levels of the federal government.
In our nation’s history, 17 presidents have been senators, and 15 have served as vice presidents. The only president who never held any high-ranking government position was Donald Trump, and this was evidenced by his incompetence and mismanagement while in office.
If you want a country of progress, freedom, compassion, and rule of law rather than one of chaos, fear, and hatred, Kamala Harris should be your choice on November 5.
David B. Kyle
New Columbia