When you look back at the career of any major political figure, there’s usually a "defining era" that sets the stage for everything that follows. For the current Vice President, that era was her time as California's top cop. Honestly, if you want to understand the modern political landscape, you’ve got to look at the six years she spent running the nation's largest state justice department.
Kamala Harris attorney general wasn't just a job title; it was a period of intense scrutiny, massive legal settlements, and a specific philosophy she called being "Smart on Crime."
It’s a record that today's critics on both the left and the right love to pick apart. Some say she was too harsh, pointing to her truancy policies. Others say she was too soft. But the reality is way more nuanced than a thirty-second campaign ad. It was a time of "brinkmanship" with big banks and pioneering data projects that most people have completely forgotten about.
The $20 Billion Game of Chicken
The year was 2011. The housing market had essentially imploded. California was the epicenter of the foreclosure crisis, and the "Big Five" banks—JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, and Ally Financial—were offering a nationwide settlement for their "robo-signing" abuses.
Basically, they were offering California about $4 billion.
Most state attorneys general were ready to sign on the dotted line. They wanted the money and they wanted it fast. Harris walked away.
She literally pulled California out of the negotiations, a move that many thought would tank the entire national deal. It was a massive gamble. She argued that the $4 billion was a pittance compared to the damage done to California homeowners.
It worked.
By holding out, she eventually secured roughly $20 billion for California. Out of that, about $12 billion went toward principal reduction for homeowners who were underwater. You've got to admit, regardless of your politics, that's a lot of leverage used effectively. This wasn't just about the money, though; it led to the California Homeowner Bill of Rights, which made those "dual-track" foreclosures (where a bank forecloses on you while simultaneously "processing" your loan modification) illegal.
Why "Smart on Crime" Still Matters
You’ll often hear people bring up her "Back on Track" program. She actually started this as the San Francisco District Attorney, but as Kamala Harris attorney general, she scaled the philosophy.
The idea was simple: instead of just throwing low-level drug offenders in a cell, give them a choice. They could plead guilty, have their sentencing deferred, and enter a rigorous 12-to-18-month program. We're talking job training, GED classes, and community service.
The results were actually pretty wild.
- Recidivism for graduates was less than 10%.
- The statewide average for similar crimes was over 50%.
- It cost about $5,000 per person vs. $50,000 for a year in prison.
She later launched "Back on Track LA" in 2015, specifically targeting the recidivism problem in Los Angeles County, which was the biggest feeder into the state prison system. It was a pivot from the "tough on crime" era that defined the 90s, though she still faced heat from activists who felt she didn't go far enough in overhauling the system.
The Complicated Reality of the Death Penalty
If you want to see where the "prosecutor vs. politician" tension really lived, look at her stance on capital punishment. Harris has long said she personally opposes the death penalty. As San Francisco DA, she famously refused to seek it for the man who killed police officer Isaac Espinoza in 2004—a move that earned her the permanent enmity of many police unions.
But as Attorney General? Things got complicated.
In 2014, a federal judge ruled that California’s death penalty was unconstitutional because the delays were so long they became "cruel and unusual."
What did Harris do? She appealed the ruling.
She argued that as the state’s lawyer, it was her job to defend the law, even if she personally disagreed with it. To her supporters, this was "duty." To her critics, it was a betrayal of her principles. It’s one of those moments that shows how the role of an AG is often about being a "steward of the system" rather than an independent activist.
OpenJustice and the Tech Era
One thing that doesn't get nearly enough headlines is OpenJustice. In 2015, Harris launched this first-of-its-kind data portal. Before this, getting stats on things like deaths in custody or officer-involved shootings was a nightmare—basically a patchwork of paperwork and local "don't ask, don't tell" policies.
OpenJustice changed the game by putting that data on a public dashboard.
- It tracked arrests and bookings by race, gender, and age.
- It highlighted the number of officers killed or assaulted.
- It provided raw data for researchers and journalists to download.
She also took on the "for-profit" college industry. If you remember the Corinthian Colleges scandal, Harris was the one who sued them for predatory marketing. She eventually won a $1.1 billion judgment against them in 2016. While the company went bankrupt and couldn't pay the full bill, that legal win paved the way for the federal government to eventually cancel billions in student debt for those defrauded students years later.
Lessons from the AG Years
Looking back, the tenure of Kamala Harris attorney general serves as a masterclass in the "middle ground" of law enforcement. She was a prosecutor who pushed for implicit bias training and body cameras for DOJ agents long before it was a mainstream demand. Yet, she also defended convictions that were later questioned by civil rights groups.
She wasn't a radical reformer, and she wasn't a "lock 'em up" conservative. She was a career prosecutor trying to modernize a massive, sluggish machine.
Actionable Insights from her Record:
- The Power of "No": Her mortgage settlement win shows that walking away from a "fair" deal can sometimes lead to a "great" one if you have the data to back it up.
- Data as Accountability: The OpenJustice project proves that transparency is the most effective way to address systemic disparities in policing.
- Reentry Works: The "Back on Track" model demonstrates that investing in job skills is significantly cheaper and more effective than long-term incarceration for non-violent offenses.
- Institutional Constraints: Her record on the death penalty serves as a reminder that the Attorney General's office is often bound by the duty to defend existing laws, regardless of personal ideology.
If you’re tracking her current policy moves, you can see the DNA of these years in everything from her focus on consumer protection to her approach to criminal justice reform on the federal level. It wasn't just a stepping stone; it was the crucible that formed her political identity.
📖 Related: How Many Electoral Votes Does Each State Get: Why Your Zip Code Changes Everything
To really grasp how the legal system in the U.S. is evolving, you have to look at these state-level battles. They are where the "Smart on Crime" theories either prove themselves or fall apart in the real world of courtrooms and budgets.