Now that the Democratic presidential primary is well underway, Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., might want to commit to one strategy when answering for the anti-truancy policy she implemented as her state’s attorney general. Does she want to own it or lie about it?
On Monday night, she did both.
At a town hall hosted by CNN, Harris defended the policy, which she instituted first as district attorney of San Francisco. She permitted criminal prosecution of parents whose children frequently missed school. She said the policy was intended to lower the murder rate of young men, as well as reduce the number of them in prison. “And as a result of our initiative — first of all, nobody went to jail — and as a result of our initiative, we improved [school] attendance by over 30%.”
Although there were some reports of an improvement in school attendance, I can’t find the 30% figure. A representative for Harris’ campaign didn’t return an email request.
Still, her answer at the town hall would have been fantastic if she hadn’t included the lie about no one going to jail and if just days before she hadn’t said she regretted the consequences stemming from the policy, which she instituted statewide after becoming California’s attorney general in 2011.
Some Californians did in fact go to jail. One woman in 2012 was sentenced to 180 days confinement after her second- and third-grade kids missed 116 days of one school year.
Harris knows about this. She said so in a podcast interview last week. “My regret is that I have now heard stories where, in some jurisdictions, DAs have criminalized the parents,” she said. “And I regret that that has happened, and the thought that anything that I did could have led to that — because that certainly was not the intention, never was the intention.”
But more importantly, lean in, girl! This is what government action looks like, and it’s not a bad thing. If voters insist on a government with more control over their lives, why should that preclude jail time for negligent parents, whose children are required to attend school (especially if it’s a state-run school)?
Harris’ anti-truancy policy is the one thing that distinguishes her from the rest of the Democrats running for the nomination. Yet, she’s tepid about owning it now that her party considers any arrest of a black or poor person to be a grave injustice.
She should stand by it and sell it. At the very least, don’t lie about it.
[Also read: Kamala Harris: ‘Congress should take the steps towards impeachment’]
