Kamala Harris' record on business: Fighting banks, backing unions
The vice president’s policies as a Democratic senator and as California’s attorney general give some clues about her approach should she win the White House.
The economy has long ranked at the top of voters’ priorities in the election. With Vice President Kamala Harris rapidly consolidating support to lead the Democratic ticket, Americans will soon begin to size up how a potential Harris administration might tackle business and the economy.
Of course, Harris has already had a leading role in steering the Biden administration as vice president, but her domestic portfolio has dealt more heavily with other issues, like immigration, than with the economic ones. Here’s what her record as a senator and as California’s attorney general reveal about her approach prior to serving as vice president.
Harris was the attorney general of California from 2011 to 2017. Early on in her tenure, she was engaged in talks on behalf of the state with some of the country’s largest banks and mortgage servicers over “robo-signing” and allegations of “foreclosure misconduct,” in which banks were accused of having employees sign dozens or sometimes thousands of foreclosure proceeding documents without verifying the information they included.
JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Ally Financial and other firms were nearing a deal to provide California about $4 billion of consumer relief. But Harris walked away from the talks in September 2011, believing the amount was too low. Five months later, the firms promised California up to $18 billion for mortgage customers as part of a multistate settlement.
Writing in her book “The Truths We Hold” in 2019, Harris said, “If we agree that homeowners deserve to be treated with dignity and 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.”
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