In a campaign filled with lies, it’s nice when Democratic candidates accidentally embrace the truth. The latest truth bomb, courtesy of VP candidate Tim Walz, recognized Kamala Harris’s humble start in the legal profession as a “young prostituter.”
Harris is famous for having had an affair with Willie Brown, who was about to become the Mayor of San Francisco, in the 1990s. At that time, Harris was 30, and Brown was in his 60s and married. Their relationship started when Harris worked as the Alameda County deputy district attorney. Many people think this relationship helped Harris’s early career because Brown gave her positions on boards and supported her campaign for District Attorney.
Brown admitted in 2019 that he “might” have influenced her career by giving her two jobs on state commissions as the Assembly speaker.
Even though they had broken up eight years earlier, Brown still supported her in her 2019 presidential race. But he claims that he has also helped the careers of other politicians, such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Governor Gavin Newsom, and Senator Dianne Feinstein.
Unfortunately for them, only Harris earned the grand prize from Brown – a shiny new BMW.
Perhaps it’s not surprising that the Harris-Walz campaign shrugs off the world’s oldest profession. After all, Harris wants to decriminalize prostitution. In Harris’s world, young girls who can no longer dream of being a pro-athlete because of transgender opponents can dream of being a hooker instead.
In a February 2019 interview, Harris sat down with The Root to discuss her views. Then-Vice President-elect Harris said she’s “always” been a strong supporter of finding a safe place for sex workers.
It’s a political platform that has seen more flip-flops than the Atlantic City boardwalk.
In the same interview, Harris said that as the district attorney in San Francisco, she pushed for stopping the arrests of prostitutes and instead focused on going after the customers and pimps. This approach, known as the Nordic model or End Demand, isn’t new. However, groups like Amnesty International say it still harms sex workers. Even though supporters claim this policy decriminalizes sex workers, it doesn’t allow any legal way for them to do their work. As a result, sex workers are still punished and watched by the police.
Alex Andrews, former board member of the Sex Workers Outreach Project (SWOP) USA and cofounder of SWOP, criticized Harris for the way she treated sex workers as the attorney general of California. Andrews mentioned that Harris helped the Oakland Police Department hide many officer-related incidents related to sex trafficking. This included not getting involved in a case where multiple police officers had sexual contact with an underage sex worker named Celeste Guap, even though Guap’s attorney asked Harris’s office for help. According to Andrews, Harris did nothing to the officers and was involved in the young woman’s exploitation.
In 2008, Harris was against Proposition K, a ballot measure in San Francisco proposed by sex workers to stop prostitution arrests in the city. She told reporters, “It would put a welcome mat out for pimps and prostitutes to come on into San Francisco.”
In the Root interview, Harris stood by her efforts to shut down Backpage.com, a classifieds website with an adult services section that included sex work listings. However, sex workers opposed the campaign to shut down Backpage because the site helped them have more control over their work conditions, making them feel safer. Some anti-trafficking advocates also disagreed with targeting these websites. Both groups argued that closing such sites would make it harder to help those in danger in the sex trade.
As predicted, shutting down the website made it difficult for sex workers to advertise safely and discuss workplace safety and organizing, leaving them more isolated and at risk.
It’s not clear what Harris’s end goal is. Her website does not mention supporting the world’s oldest profession.
But she certainly seems to support screwing the nation.