FLASHREPORT

SF DA KAMELA HARRIS RECOGNIZED BY OBAMA FOR HER EMBARRASSING FAILURES

Mike Antonopoulos, Chairman, California College Republicans

[Publisher's Note:  As part of an ongoing effort to bring original, thoughtful commentary to you here at the FlashReport, I am pleased to present this column from Mike Antonopoulos, Chairman of the California College Republicans - Flash]

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San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris was in Washington D.C. this week as part of a delegation picked by the Obama Administration. She was there to talk about her “success” with gang-violence programs.   I am not certain what bar they measure success by, but the embarrassing failures of Ms. Harris’ “Back on Track” program have been highlighted by both the Los Angeles Times and San Francisco Chronicle.  These missteps include mistakenly allowing illegal aliens into her program and “graduates” violently reoffending.  Her leadership of this program is more suited for national scorn than praise, and should give California voters significant pause about her Attorney General campaign. In that race, she will face Republican Tom Harman, an Orange County Senator widely respected in law enforcement circles and among victims’ rights organizations.

Kamala Harris told the national political website Politico in an article published August 24th that, “Many cities in California are facing vicious and growing gang activity, and across the nation communities are held hostage by gang-related violence."  Yet in 2004, Kamala Harris got nationwide attention and drew the ire of citizens and police officers when she refused to seek the death penalty for a gang member that shot and murdered a young San Francisco police officer in cold-blood.  Adding insult to injury, she made her decision even before the young officer’s family had a chance to bury this fallen hero. 

In a New York Times article written in 2004 just after this controversy, Kamala Harris was quoted saying that her job as a prosecutor is “not about the responsibility to lock people up for the maximum amount of time.”  If we don’t punish a cop-killer, or any convicted murderer to the fullest extent of the law, then what message do we send to criminals?  More importantly, what does that say to the victims of crime and family left behind?  This is a troubling perspective from the District Attorney of a major California county and even more disconcerting that this individual is now running to be California’s “top cop.” 

While I am sure Ms. Harris’ approach to justice melds very well with those of her well-heeled Hollywood donors like producer Norman Lear, Scott Carter – Executive Producer to the Bill Maher show -- and Steven Bochco to name a few, she is clearly out of touch with the mainstream of California voters. 

California’s next Attorney General will face difficult challenges, including reining in the record of rampant politicization that occurred under its current occupant, Jerry Brown.  Kamala Harris’ record indicates that she will continue down that activist path and work against the death penalty and other tough-on-crime laws.  Kamala Harris’s candidacy, combined with legislative efforts to dump tens of thousands of felons back into our communities, represent a twin threat to public safety unmatched in modern California history.  
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Michael Antonopoulos is Chairman of the California College Republicans. He also represents thirteen College Republican state federations as the elected Western Region Vice Chairman of the College Republican National Committee.

You can write to Antonopoulos, via the FR, here.