Kamala Harris becomes first Black person, first Asian American sworn in as US Vice-President
Kamala Harris becomes the first woman, first Black and first South Asian vice president.(AP/Saul Loeb)
Kamala Harris has been sworn in as the US Vice-President, becoming the first woman, the first Black person and the first Asian American to hold the office.
Key points:
- Harris is seen as a successor to Biden if he doesn’t seek a second term
- As US Vice-President, Harris serves as Senate President
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Ms Harris is the daughter of immigrants from India and Jamaica
In his inaugural address, Joe Biden reflected on the 1913 march for women’s suffrage, during which some marchers were heckled and attacked, on the day before president Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration.
“Here we stand where 108 years ago at another inaugural, thousands of protesters tried to block brave women marching for the right to vote,” Mr Biden said.
The moment was steeped in history and significance in more ways than one.
Ms Harris was escorted to the podium by Capitol Police officer Eugene Goodman, the officer who single-handedly took on a mob of Trump supporters as they tried to breach the Senate floor during the Capitol riot that sought to overturn the election results.
She was wearing clothes from two young, emerging Black designers; a deep purple dress and coat.
After taking the oath of office, a beaming Ms Harris hugged her husband, Douglas Emhoff, and gave Mr Biden a first bump.
After the ceremony, she and Mr Emhoff escorted former vice-president Mike Pence and his wife, Karen Pence, out of the Capitol.
The gesture would normally be performed by the incoming and outgoing presidents, but Mr Trump did not attended the inauguration.
Ms Harris, Ms Pence and their spouses spoke for several minutes before the Pences departed.
Harris swears in new senators as Vice-President
Just hours after taking her own oath at the Capitol, Vice-President Harris delivered the oath of office to three new Democratic senators: Jon Ossoff, Raphael Warnock and Alex Padilla.
The three Democrats join a Senate narrowly split 50-50 between the parties, but the Democrats have the majority with Ms Harris able to cast the tie-breaking vote.
Taken together, their arrival gives Democrats, for the first time in a decade, control of the Senate, the House and the White House, as President Biden faces the unparalleled challenges of the COVID-19 crisis and its economic fallout, and the nation’s painful political divisions from the deadly January 6 siege of the Capitol by a mob loyal to Donald Trump.
Mr Ossoff, a former congressional aide and investigative journalist, and Mr Warnock, a pastor from the late Martin Luther King Jr’s church in Atlanta, won run-off elections in Georgia this month, defeating two Republicans.
Mr Padilla was tapped by California’s Governor to finish the remainder of Harris’ term — drawing chuckles from the new Vice-President as she read aloud the official documentation.
‘Second in command of the free world’
A US senator from California the past four years, Ms Harris has shattered many a glass ceiling.
She served as San Francisco’s first female district attorney and was California’s first woman of colour to be elected Attorney-General.
Ms Harris has resigned her Senate seat, but she still will play a prominent role in the chamber.
The US Vice-President serves as Senate President, casting any tie-breaking votes in the 100-member chamber.
With it split evenly between Democrats and Republicans, Ms Harris gives her party control of the Senate.
Those close to Ms Harris say she will bring an important, and often missing, perspective to the debates on how to overcome the many hurdles facing the new administration.
“In many folks’ lifetimes, we experienced a segregated United States,” said Lateefah Simon, a civil rights advocate and longtime Harris friend and mentee.
Ms Harris’ background in criminal justice could help the new Biden administration tackle the issues of racial equality and policing after the country was swept by protests last year.
She is expected to be a top adviser on judicial nominations.
Ms Harris is the daughter of immigrants, with her mother coming to the United States from India, and her father from Jamaica.
She had her sights set on becoming the first woman US president when she competed against Mr Biden and others for their party’s 2020 nomination.
Ms Harris dropped out of the race after a campaign hurt by her wavering views on health care and indecision about embracing her past as a prosecutor.
Mr Biden looked beyond some of the harsh words she had for him in that campaign to name Ms Harris as his running mate last August.
She has proven to be a valuable and polished stand-in, appealing especially to women, liberals and voters of colour.
Ms Harris developed a deep fundraising network during her Senate and White House bids.
She was instrumental to Mr Biden raking in record sums of money in the closing months of the campaign against Republican incumbent Donald Trump.
Her selection sparked a burst of excitement in the Democratic voter base and among the party’s donors.
Harris defended controversial past as Biden running mate
Ms Harris faced accusations that she did not do enough to investigate police shootings and wrongful conviction cases when she was California’s Attorney-General. This helped doom her own presidential run but surfaced little during her time as Mr Biden’s running mate.
Ms Harris defended her record, saying she had worked her whole career “to reform the criminal justice system with the understanding that it is deeply flawed and in need of repair”.
Prior to her selection, several Biden aides said Ms Harris was able to put to rest concerns among some in the former vice-president’s camp that she would be too personally ambitious to make a trustworthy partner.
“Joe and I were raised in a very similar way,” Ms Harris said of Mr Biden at her October debate against then-vice-president Mike Pence.
“We were raised with values that are about hard work, about the value and the dignity of public service and about the importance of fighting for the dignity of all people.”
‘A backbone like a ramrod’
Ms Harris juggled her running mate duties with her day job in the Senate.
With her background as a prosecutor, she was a deft cross-examiner of US Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett at Ms Barrett’s Senate confirmation hearing in October, weaving Biden’s campaign message on health care and climate change into her line of questioning.
As the Senate’s only Black woman, Ms Harris emerged as a leading voice on racial justice and police reform after Minneapolis police killed African American man, George Floyd, in May.
She marched with protesters on the streets of Washington and won over some liberal sceptics.
Asked on the CBS program 60 Minutes last year why, given Mr Biden’s age, he believed Ms Harris would be ready to step into the presidency if something happened to him, Mr Biden rapidly fired off five reasons.
“Number one, her values. Number two, she is smart as a devil, and number three, she has a backbone like a ramrod. Number four, she is really principled. And number five, she has had significant experience in the largest state in the union in running the justice department that’s only second in size to the United States Justice Department. And obviously, I hope that never becomes a question,” Mr Biden said.
Ms Harris is married to attorney Douglas Emhoff, who has adopted the Twitter handle @SecondGentleman.
His two children from a previous marriage refer to their stepmother as “Momala”.
