Democrat presidential hopeful Kamala Harris has embedded her sister, Maya, at the heart of her campaign, with their husbands also providing guidance along the way.
The younger Harris was the featured guest at fundraisers for her candidate sister in New York and Connecticut as May transitioned to June. Candidate Harris did not attend the events Politico described as “intimate.”
Maya has been deeply involved in her sister’s presidential campaign: fundraising, hiring, assisting with policy positions, and courting politicians in early voting states, according to Politico. She previously served as an adviser on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and commentated on MSNBC.
Maya’s politics were described as “radical, left-wing” by a friend cited but not named in the Politico report. The friend is quoted as telling the outlet, “She has activists, radicals and revolutionaries on her speed dial.”
A November 2016 New Yorker profile of Maya Harris’s work on Clinton’s campaign described her as “Clinton’s progressive link.” Fortune profiled her in June 2015 as she worked on Clinton’s campaign. That report noted her “evident” influence in an April 29 Clinton speech that denounced 1990’s “tough-on-crime policies” under Clinton’s husband’s administration that she said led to an “era of mass incarceration.”
As campaign chair, she has courted and won endorsements for her sister in such states as South Carolina. Campaign manager Juan Rodriguez said the team is constantly working to find where Maya “can help [them] expand [their] bandwidth.” She has long been an activist, serving at one point at the helm of the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California.
The younger Harris led a recent conference call with what the report described as “women’s health organizations” to discuss the candidate’s abortion plan. She has been an advisory voice on how to handle her sister’s record on law enforcement as Democrat positions have moved farther to the left. Evidence of this internal movement has manifested publicly as candidate Harris’s stances on law enforcement issues have shifted.
Regarding fundraising, the report identified Maya’s focus on New York African American and Indian American communities, including identifying those previously untapped for political fundraising. She has also traveled ahead of the 2020 candidate to states such as Mississippi, Louisiana, and Georgia and pulled in Georgia State Rep. Erick Allen, who then endorsed Harris’s 2020 bid when the candidate made a stop in Atlanta.
Maya’s husband, Tony West, who also advises Harris on her presidential campaign, served as the third-highest-ranking official in President Barack Obama’s Justice Department, serving more than five years for that administration’s Justice Department. He now works as chief legal officer at Uber and previously worked at PepsiCo as executive vice president of public policy and government affairs. Politico also listed Kamala Harris’s husband, Doug Emhoff, as having input on the campaign.
Clinton 2016 campaign senior adviser Minyon Moore told the outlet of Maya from their days working together, “Hillary loved her. She loved her.” While serving on Clinton’s platform committee alongside Bernie Sanders’ former policy director, Warren Gunnels, Maya called their platform proposal the “most ambitious and progressive platform” the Democrat Party had seen.
Michelle Moons is a White House Correspondent for Breitbart News — follow on Twitter @MichelleDiana and Facebook.
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