The Truths We Hold

by Kamala Harris

  I’ll never forget one Democratic legislator saying to me, “Well, Kamala, I don’t know what’s so bad about these foreclosures. They’re good for our local economy. Because when a house is foreclosed upon and abandoned, that means they have to hire painters and gardeners to clean it up.” Really? Really? Did this guy also support arson because it keeps fire extinguisher companies in business? It was stunning to me how people would justify being in the pocket of the banks.

  While Speaker Pérez spent time focusing on the inside game, I went on the road, using the bully pulpit to evangelize for a fairer, more just system for homeowners. I was joined in the effort by a number of groups that had been championing homeowner rights and were mounting a pressure campaign to get the bill passed. Organized labor was critically important to this effort. Their ability to mobilize supporters was stunning. So many people called their legislators that they crashed the phone lines.

  But it wasn’t just labor’s organizing efforts that mattered. It was their very presence. There was a cynical way of thinking in Sacramento: When a home is foreclosed on, the family living there is likely to move out of your district. They will no longer be your constituents. So their anger is only a temporary problem for you. The banks, on the other hand, are a permanent presence in the state capital, and their anger could result in retribution. What organized labor made clear was that there was also a permanent presence in the capital that was going to fight intensely for workers, not just so they could have better wages, but so they could be treated with dignity in every aspect of their lives, including buying a home. It sent a powerful message: Side with the banks, answer to labor.

  As the vote drew near, I started walking the halls of the capitol building, knocking unannounced on legislators’ doors. A lot of people refused to see me. I dispatched key members of my team as well. Brian Nelson, my special assistant attorney general, recalls that I would sometimes call him at his desk, and if he answered, he was in trouble. “Why are you sitting at your desk?” I’d ask. “Why aren’t you walking the halls of the capitol? I know you have important work, but nothing is more important than this. You gotta be walking the halls! No one should be able to avoid having a face-to-face conversation with one of us.”

  When the bill came to the floor for a vote, we still didn’t have a majority. Many legislators were planning not to vote so they wouldn’t have to take a position one way or the other. But we needed forty-one people to vote yes. Abstentions were tantamount to voting no.

  Speaker Pérez had a plan. He was going to hold the vote open while we continued to pressure people to come to our side. If they didn’t want to vote, he implied, the vote was just going to stay open forever. At the beginning of the proceeding, he had an ally make a point of parliamentary inquiry.

  “What’s the longest the roll has ever been open?” the legislator asked.

  “To my understanding,” Pérez said, “the longest the roll has ever been open was an hour and forty-five minutes, and you know how competitive I am. I’m willing to go a lot longer than that!” At that point, everyone understood he was serious, and green lights started flashing as votes were cast.

  I was in the office of Darrell Steinberg, the senate president pro tem, who had also played an instrumental role, watching the floor action on a closed-circuit television. I watched for legislators who weren’t yet on the floor or who were milling around in the back. “I saw you didn’t vote,” I would text. “Go vote. It’s time.” We moved person to person, one by one, as John repeated the same phrase over and over again. “Have all members voted who decided to vote? Have all members voted who decided to vote?” He sounded like an auctioneer.

  It felt like it lasted forever. But in reality it took only about five minutes of this before we got our forty-first vote cast. John closed the vote, and we declared victory. The bill passed the state senate as well and was signed into law by the governor. We had done what we had been told was impossible. It was as gratifying a moment as I can remember, and a reminder that even in the sausage making of politics, inspiring things can happen and good work can be done.

  Meanwhile, the Mortgage Fraud Strike Force was pushing hard. The unit would go on to investigate and prosecute a number of major mortgage scams. The head of one of the larger scams was sentenced to twenty-four years in state prison. Because of the efforts of a truly extraordinary team, we were able to secure—on top of the $18 billion—$300 million from JPMorgan to reimburse the state pension system for losses on investments in mortgage-backed securities. We also secured $550 million from SunTrust Mortgage, $200 million from Citigroup, and another $500 million from Bank of America—all in connection with the mortgage crisis.

  These were important wins, to be sure. But they weren’t the kinds of victories we wanted to celebrate, because, for all the people these actions helped, millions of Americans across the country were still hurting. And despite the billions we recovered, a lot of people still lost their homes. The structural damage to the economy was so profound that, even with some relief, many people couldn’t pay their mortgages and still make ends meet. The jobs weren’t there. And neither were the wages.

  Countless Americans saw their credit destroyed. Parents’ dreams of financing their children’s education evaporated like mist. Families faced multiple stresses simultaneously—from joblessness to homelessness to abruptly having to switch school districts. One analysis published in The Lancet suggested that “the rise in US unemployment during the recession [was] associated with a 3.8% increase in the suicide rate, corresponding to about 1330 suicides.”

  In many ways, the impact of the crash is still with us in 2018. In Fresno, the overwhelming majority of homes are still valued below their prerecession levels. Nationally, middle-class wealth was nearly wiped out and much of it hasn’t returned.

  Studies suggest that the burden hit black families disproportionately. An independent report of the Social Science Research Council, commissioned by the American Civil Liberties Union, found that, whereas white and black families alike were hit hard by the 2007–2009 crisis, by 2011 “the typical white family’s losses slowed to zero, while the typical black family lost an additional 13 percent of its wealth.” The consequence: “For a typical Black family, median wealth in 2031 will be almost $98,000 lower than it would have been without the Great Recession.”

  In other words, tomorrow’s generations will suffer as a result of yesterday’s folly and greed. We cannot change what has already happened. But we can make sure it never happens again.

  The culture on Wall Street hasn’t changed. Only some of the rules have. And the banks are waging a full-scale battle to repeal the Obama-era Wall Street reforms that have helped hold them in check. Where they have failed to repeal them, they have done everything they can to get around them. According to an analysis from The Wall Street Journal, between 2010 and 2017, major banks invested $345 billion in subprime loans—funneling the money to nonbank financial institutions, or so-called shadow banks.

  “Banks say their new approach of lending to nonbank lenders is safer than dealing directly with consumers with bad credit and companies with shaky balance sheets,” noted the Journal. “Yet these relationships mean that banks are still deeply intertwined with the riskier loans they say they swore off after the financial crisis.”

  Meanwhile, in 2017, the president appointed a man to run the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau who has referred to that very bureau as “a joke,” and who set about actively dismantling it from the inside. In 2018, instead of tightening the rules on Wall Street, Congress rolled back essential protections, releasing midsize banks from the regulations meant to keep them in check. This is more than unacceptable. It’s outrageous.

  There is still much to be done. If we agree that we are tired of banks getting away with such reckless behavior, if we agree that we can’t let the banks drag us into another recession, if we agree that homeowners deserve to be treated with dignity a
nd respect, not as lines on a balance sheet to be packaged and sold, then there’s only one way to achieve the change we seek: with our voices and our votes.

  Four

  WEDDING BELLS

  Whenever I travel to a country for the first time, I try to visit the highest court in the land. They are monuments of a certain kind, built not just to house a courtroom but to convey a message. In New Delhi, for example, the Supreme Court of India is designed to symbolize the balancing scales of justice. In Jerusalem, Israel’s iconic Supreme Court building combines straight lines—which represent the immutable nature of the law—with curved walls and glass that represent the fluid nature of justice. These are buildings that speak.

  The same can be said of the United States Supreme Court Building, which, to my mind, is the most beautiful of them all. Its architecture harks back to the earliest days of democracy, as though you are standing in front of a modern-day Parthenon. It is grand and commanding while also dignified and restrained. As you walk up the steps toward an extraordinary portico of Corinthian columns, you can see a nation’s founding aspirations in its architecture. It is there that the words EQUAL JUSTICE UNDER LAW are engraved in stone. And it was that promise that brought me to the Supreme Court Building on March 26, 2013.

  When I arrived, the building was admittedly not looking its finest. It was encased in scaffolding, part of an overdue repair effort after a large chunk of marble broke off and fell to the ground. To minimize the unsightly view, a life-size, high-resolution photograph of the facade had been printed on a scrim and draped across the entrance. It was about as realistic as one of those oversize beach T-shirts with a bikini body printed on the front. Even so, the majesty of the building was unmistakable.

  I was escorted to my seat in the courtroom. Because the Supreme Court justices don’t allow photography or video inside, this is a place that most of the country never sees. I certainly hadn’t before that day. I gazed around in awe: the stunning pink marble; the vivid red draping and intricate ceiling; the imposing bench with its nine empty chairs. I kept thinking about all the history that had been made inside these walls. But unlike a museum or a place like Gettysburg, where history is preserved for posterity, the Supreme Court is a place where history is active and alive, where it continues to unfold with every decision.

  A little after 10 a.m., we rose as the nine justices entered the courtroom and took their seats.

  “We’ll hear argument this morning in Case 12-144, Hollingsworth v. Perry,” said Chief Justice John Roberts.

  This was the case against Proposition 8, a California ballot initiative that passed in 2008, prohibiting marriages for same-sex couples in the state. It had been a long time coming.

  California may have a reputation as a bastion of liberalism, but in the year 2000, California voters approved a ballot initiative—Prop 22 (also known as the Knight Initiative, after its author, state senator William “Pete” Knight)—that required the state to define marriage as a union between people of the opposite sex. For years we fought it—in the streets, at the ballot box, and in the courts. Even my then school-aged niece, Meena, got in on the action; I remember one time going to pick her up at her high school and being told she was in a student meeting. When I got to the classroom, young Meena was in front, rallying her peers: “This isn’t a Knight Initiative—it’s a nightmare!”

  During Valentine’s Day week in 2004, then–San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom decided to allow marriages for same-sex couples to proceed anyway.

  I was on my way to the airport to catch a flight to Los Angeles, but I decided to pass by San Francisco City Hall before I left. There were throngs of people lined up around the block, waiting to get in. They were counting down the minutes before a government would finally recognize their right to marry whomever they loved. The joy and anticipation were palpable. Some of them had been waiting decades.

  I got out of my car and walked up the steps of City Hall, where I bumped into a city official. “Kamala, come and help us,” she said, a glowing smile on her face. “We need more people to perform the marriages.” I was delighted to be a part of it.

  I was quickly sworn in, along with numerous city officials. We stood together performing marriages in the hallway, crowded into every nook and cranny of City Hall. There was all this wonderful excitement building as we welcomed the throngs of loving couples, one by one, to be married then and there. It was unlike anything I had ever been a part of before. And it was beautiful.

  But not long after, the marriages were invalidated. The couples who had been so happy and hopeful received letters telling them that their marriage licenses would not be recognized under the law. It was, for each and every one of them, a devastating setback.

  In May 2008, the California Supreme Court came to the rescue. The court held that the same-sex marriage ban was unconstitutional, which paved the way for LGBTQ couples to realize the equal dignity they had always deserved. Ronald George, who had sworn me in as district attorney of San Francisco, wrote the majority opinion. And over the next six months, eighteen thousand same-sex couples exchanged wedding vows in California.

  But in November 2008, on the same night that Barack Obama was elected president, the people of California narrowly voted to pass Prop 8, an amendment to the California Constitution that stripped same-sex couples of their right to marry. Because this was a constitutional amendment, it couldn’t be overturned by the legislature or the state court system. No new marriages could be performed. Couples who had already been married were placed in a cruel limbo.

  There was one clear route left to justice: the federal courts. The American Foundation for Equal Rights, then led by Chad Griffin, decided that the best way to respond was to bring suit against the state of California, arguing that Prop 8 violated the protections granted to every citizen in the Fourteenth Amendment: equal protection and due process under the law. This was a matter of civil rights and civil justice, and Griffin and his team planned to take the case all the way to the Supreme Court. The organization hired the lawyers who had argued against each other in Bush v. Gore, then filed a lawsuit on behalf of two same-sex couples—Kris Perry and Sandy Stier; Paul Katami and Jeff Zarrillo—whose job was to represent in court the millions of people just like them, people who simply wanted to be accorded the human dignity of marrying the person they loved.

  It would take eight months for the lawsuit to make its way to the first stage of the fight: the U.S. federal district court. Inside that courtroom, a judge would hear from witnesses, review evidence, and, based on the facts before him, decide whether Prop 8 had violated the civil rights of Kris, Sandy, Jeff, and Paul. On August 4, 2010, Chief Judge Vaughn Walker ruled in their favor, concluding that Prop 8 was indeed unconstitutional and affirming the right of same-sex couples to marry. It was fantastic and important news. But, as is common practice, the judge decided he was going to wait to enforce the ruling until it was appealed to a higher court—a legal concept known as a stay.

  I was in the middle of my race for attorney general when the ruling came down, and it quickly became a central issue in the campaign. The California attorney general had the right to appeal the decision. Jerry Brown, whom I was running to succeed, had refused to defend the measure in court. I, too, made clear that I had no intention of spending a penny of the attorney general’s office’s resources defending Prop 8. My opponent took the other view—a sharp distinction between us. I understood that it wasn’t just about principle; it was about practical outcomes. If California refused to appeal the ruling, the lower court judge could lift the stay and the state could start issuing marriage licenses again right away. If California did appeal the ruling, on the other hand, it would take years before marriages could begin.

  When I won the election, my refusal to appeal the decision should have been the end of it. But proponents of Prop 8 were unwilling to give up the fight. In an unusual move, they joined together to appeal the ruling themselves.
In my view, they had no basis for doing so. Your right to free speech doesn’t give you the right to intervene in a court proceeding. You don’t get to be a party in a lawsuit simply because you have strong feelings about something. In order to bring a case in court, you are required to have standing, which means, among other things, that you have suffered or might suffer an actual injury. (In more colloquial terms, I think of it as my New Jersey–raised husband might explain it: you have to be able to provide a concrete answer to the question “Whatsittoya?”)

  Kris Perry had standing to sue the state when Prop 8 passed because it injured her; it stripped her of a civil right. We had a law on the books that treated one group of Americans differently from all other Americans, and fundamentally that was unfair. But when Prop 8 was invalidated in federal court, that decision gave protections to one group without taking away anything from anyone. The constitutional principle was clear. Those people who wanted to deny same-sex couples the benefits of equal protection and due process under the U.S. Constitution could not do so simply because they didn’t like the notion. They would always have their freedom of expression. But they did not have the power to deny other Americans their fundamental rights.

  And yet the appeal proceeded. The ruling stayed on hold. It would take more than a year before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued its decision. Each day of delay represented justice denied—and much, much more. Each day of delay was a day a devoted couple couldn’t consecrate their commitment. Each day of delay was a day a grandmother passed away before the wedding she would have loved to see. Each day of delay was a day a child was left wondering “Why can’t my parents get married, too?”