Sen. Kamala Harris Announces 2020 White House Run

Sen. Kamala Harris announces her 2020 presidential candidacy

U.S. Senator Kamala Harris of California (D) announced today she will seek the Democratic nomination for president in 2020.

Harris chose to embrace the symbolism of announcing her candidacy on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

A former prosecutor and California Attorney General, she has been in the Senate since January 2017.

The 54-year-old told viewers of Good Morning America, where she made the big announcement, “My entire career has been focused on keeping people safe. It is probably one of the things that motivates me more than anything else.”

I'm running for president. Let's do this together. Join us: https://t.co/9KwgFlgZHA pic.twitter.com/otf2ez7t1p

— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) January 21, 2019

I find Harris to be smart, articulate, and experienced. I don't think there's a question she's qualified. I look forward to seeing her at the early debates and hear what she has to say in regard to what a Harris administration would look like.

As attorney general in California, she refused to defend Proposition 8, the state’s hideous ban on same-sex marriage. She also refused to certify a “Kill the Gays” ballot initiative that would have instituted the death penalty for homosexuality.

When the Supreme Court finally made marriage equality the law of the land in 2015, Harris officiated the wedding of Prop 8 plaintiffs Sandy Stier and Kris Perry.

Upon joining the Senate, she co-sponsored the Equality Act, legislation that seeks to bar anti-LGBT discrimination under federal law.

Rick Zbur, executive director of Equality California told the Los Angeles Blade, “We’ve known her since she was the DA in San Francisco, and then of course, when she as attorney general was more engaged than any attorney general has been with us in the LGBTQ community.”

There was a blemish on her LGBTQ record when in 2015, while Attorney General of California, she signed off on some briefs that sought to withhold gender confirmation surgery for transgender prison inmates that had been prescribed while serving out their sentences.

Today, at Howard University, she told the Washington Blade's Chris Johnson, “It was an office with a lot of people who would do the work on a daily basis, and do I wish that sometimes they would have personally consulted me before they wrote the things that they wrote?” Harris said. “Yes, I do.”

“But the bottom line is the buck stops with me, and I take full responsibility for what my office did,” Harris said.

Harris went on to say she helped coordinate an agreement with the California Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation to set up a process where transgender inmates could obtain transition-related care, including gender reassignment surgery.

Several of Harris' Senate colleagues will be in the hunt for the Democratic nomination as well.

Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts have both formed exploratory committees.

Sens. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Cory Booker of New Jersey, and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota are also eyeing the race.