THE SAN BERNARDINO
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AMERICAN
“A Man In Debt is So Far A Slave” -Emerson
NEWSPAPER A Community Newspaper Serving San Bernardino, Riverside & Los Angeles Counties Volume 51 No. 17
Mailing: P.O. Box 837, Victorville, CA 92393
August 13, 2020 - August 19, 2020 Office: (909) 889-7677
Email: Mary @Sb-American.com
Website: www.SB-American.com
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what people will submit to and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them and these will continue till they have resisted either with words or blows or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance those of whom they suppress. —Fredrick Douglass (1849)
Kamala Harris Is Biden’s Choice for Vice President
A former rival for the Democratic nomination, she will be the first woman of color to be nominated for national office by a major political party.
California Voters to Decide Whether or Not Parolees Should Be Allowed to Vote Quinci LeGardye | California Black Media
By Alexander Burns and Katie Glueck
Senator Kamala Harris spent most of her career as a prosecutor and has been a reliable ally of the Democratic establishment.Credit...Elizabeth Frantz for The New York Times Alexander Burns
Joseph R. Biden Jr. selected Senator Kamala Harris of California as his vice-presidential running mate on Tuesday, embracing a former rival who sharply criticized him in the Democratic primaries but emerged after ending her campaign as a vocal supporter of Mr. Biden and a prominent advocate of racialjustice legislation after the death of George Floyd in late May. Ms. Harris, 55, is the first Black woman and the first person of Indian descent to be nominated for national office by a major party, and only the fourth woman in history to be chosen for one of their presidential tickets. She brings to the race a far more vigorous campaign style than Mr. Biden’s, including a gift for capturing moments of raw political electricity on the debate stage and elsewhere, and a personal identity and family story that many find inspiring. Mr. Biden announced the selection over text message and in a follow-up email to supporters: “Joe Biden here. Big news: I’ve chosen Kamala Harris as my running mate. Together, with you, we’re going to beat Trump.” The two are expected to appear together in Wilmington, Del., on Wednesday. After her own presidential bid disintegrated last year, many Democrats regarded Ms. Harris as all but certain to attempt another run for the White House in the future. By choosing her as his political partner, Mr. Biden may well be anointing her as the de facto leader of the party in four or eight years. A pragmatic moderate who spent most of her career as a
prosecutor, Ms. Harris was seen throughout the vice-presidential search as among the safest choices available to Mr. Biden. She has been a reliable ally of the Democratic establishment, with flexible policy priorities that largely mirror Mr. Biden’s, and her supporters argued that she could reinforce Mr. Biden’s appeal to Black voters and women without stirring particularly vehement opposition on the right or left. While she endorsed a number of left-wing policy proposals during her presidential bid, Ms. Harris also showed a distinctly Biden-like impatience with what she characterized as the grand but impractical governing designs of some in her party. “Policy has to be relevant,” Ms. Harris said last summer in an interview with The New York Times. “That’s my guiding principle: Is it relevant? Not, ‘Is it a beautiful sonnet?’” In a Twitter post Tuesday, Ms. Harris said she was honored to join Mr. Biden on the ticket. “Joe Biden can unify the American people because he’s spent his life fighting for us,’’ she wrote. For all the complexity of Mr. Biden’s vice-presidential search, there is a certain foreordained quality to Ms. Harris’s nomination. She has been regarded as a rising figure in Democratic politics since around the turn of the century, and as a confident representative of the country’s multiracial future. Ms. Harris sought to capture that sense of destiny in her own presidential campaign, announcing her candidacy on Martin Luther King Day in 2019 and paying frequent homage to Shirley Chisholm,
the first Black candidate to seek a major party’s nomination. Throughout her rise, Ms. Harris has excited Democrats with a personal story that set her apart even in the diverse political melting pot that is California: she is the daughter of two immigrant academics, an Indian-American mother and a father from Jamaica. Ms. Harris was raised in Oakland and Berkeley, attended Howard University and pursued a career in criminal justice before becoming only the second Black woman ever elected to the Senate. Poorer Americans have much lower voting rates in national elections than the nonpoor, a study finds. Still, Ms. Harris was far from a shoo-in for the role of Mr. Biden’s running mate, and some of Mr. Biden’s advisers harbored persistent reservations about her because of her unsteady performance as a presidential candidate and the finely staged ambush she mounted against Mr. Biden in the first debate of the primary season. Jill Biden, the former second lady, called Ms. Harris’s debate stage remarks a “punch to the gut” at a fund-raiser in March. In the end, however, Mr. Biden may have come to see the panache Ms. Harris displayed in that debate — when she confronted him over his past opposition to busing as a means of integrating public schools — as more of a potential asset to his ticket than as a source of lingering grievance. Indeed, even in the bleaker periods of her presidential candidacy last year, Ms. Harris maintained an ability to excite Democratic
voters with the imagined prospect of a debate-stage clash between her and President Trump. Minutes after the announcement, the Biden campaign released what they called a fact sheet — “Biden-Harris: Ready to lead,” read the subject line. Perhaps in recognition of the attention paid to tensions between the Biden family and Ms. Harris surrounding the debate stage attack, the release included a section titled, “Kamala’s partnership with Joe Biden.” The document noted that she served as attorney general of California when Mr. Biden’s son, Beau, was attorney general of Delaware. “The two grew close while fighting to take on the banking industry,” read one bullet point. “Through her friendship with Beau, she got to know Joe Biden. From hearing about Kamala from Beau, to seeing her fight for others directly, Joe has long been impressed by how tough Kamala is.” Mr. Biden’s choice drew immediate praise Tuesday afternoon from some of his former rivals for the Democratic nomination. Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, herself a onetime candidate for the vice-presidential slot, called it a “historic moment” and praised Ms. Harris’s leadership, experience and character. The Trump campaign responded to Ms. Harris’s selection with a statement branding her as “proof that Joe Biden is an empty shell being filled with the extreme agenda of the radicals on the left.” Katrina Pierson, a spokeswoman for the campaign, attacked the policy stances Ms. Harris adopted during her own presidential campaign and highlighted her past attacks on Mr. Biden. “Clearly, Phony Kamala will abandon her own morals, as well as try to bury her record as a prosecutor, in order to appease the anti-police extremists controlling the Democrat Party,” Ms. Pierson said. After leaving the presidential race in December, Ms. Harris turned her attention back to the Senate and found new purpose amid a wave of nationwide protests this spring against racism and police brutality. She marched beside protesters and forcefully championed proposals to overhaul policing and make lynching a federal crime, often speaking with a kind of clarity that had eluded her in the presidential primaries on economic issues continued on page 6
In November, Californians will vote on a proposition that could expand voting rights to include parolees. If passed, Proposition 17, which passed the State Senate as ACA 6 June 24, would amend the state constitution so that any otherwise eligible person who is not currently incarcerated can vote. The current law in California prohibits previously incarcerated persons from voting while on parole, though they can vote while on probation, county PostRelease Community Supervision and federal supervised release. Allowing parolees to vote would enfranchise over 40,000 Californians currently on parole. According to Ballotpedia, as of 2020, California is one of three states that require people convicted of felonies to complete their prison and parole sentences to regain their right to vote. Seventeen states and the District of Columbia restore voting rights to people convicted of felonies after they complete their prison term. Assemblymember Kevin McCar t y (D-Sacramento) introduced the bill in the California Legislature. It was sponsored by the California Secretary of State Alex Padilla, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of California, and Initiate Justice, an advocacy group focused on ending mass incarceration. The bill was also a priority bill of the California Legislative Black Caucus. “ACA 6 gives Californians the chance to right a wrong and restore voting rights for a marginalized community and people of color,” McCarty said June 24. “This is good for democracy and good for public safety.” Parole is the re-entry period after serving a prison term that allows a convicted felon to be released from prison with restrictions. The ballot measure brings up the question of whether the right to vote is a necessary restriction that’s integral to the parole process. Supporters of Prop 17 argue that previously incarcerated persons contribute to society while on parole, through working
and volunteering. They say because of those contributions, parolees should have a say in the legislative process. “This bill says once you have paid your debts to society and have returned to society to work and pay taxes and contribute, that you should also have the right to voice your opinion about your elected representative,” argued Senator Holly Mitchell (D-Los Angeles). Opponents of the ballot measure argue that withholding the right to vote as part of the re-entry process is meant “to incentivize further appropriate behavior.” Election Integrity Project California, a voter roll watchdog group, submitted a letter opposing ACA 6 to the state legislature. “While on parole, the individual’s liberties, such as movement, association, activities and even ownership of certain items are still heavily restricted and regularly monitored by the system. Any misstep results in immediate re-incarceration. In other words, an individual on parole has not regained the full trust of the society at large, nor the privilege to participate as a full member of that society,” the letter read. Prop 17 disproportionately affects Black and Brown Californians, who comprise most incarcerated people in the state. According to the Public Policy Institute of California, Black people make up 26% of parolees. About 6% of the population of California is Black. “People on parole are our family members, our colleagues, our neighbors, our friends,” said Senator Steven Bradford (D-Gardena). “They go to work every day. They pay taxes. They do their part to successfully reintegrate themselves back into society, yet the stigma exists for them.” “The removal of the right to vote is not based in an interest in public safety. Rather, it is rooted in a punitive justice belief system that intentionally attempts to rob marginalized people of their political power,” said Taina Vargas-Edmond, Executive Director of Initiate Justice.