With the 2020 presidential election now less than three months away, presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden is expected to announce his selection for vice president within the coming days. As previously reported by The Inquisitr , one of those considered to be near the top of Biden’s list is California Sen. Kamala Harris.
But while many consider her to be the “safe pick,” an opinion piece by USA Today columnist Ruben Navarrette Jr. argued the two would create a “disastrous duo” for the Democrats in a year full of social unrest stemming from the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
The piece went into detail about the political pasts of both Biden and Harris as they pertained to crime and policing policies. Navarrette explained that in the early ’90s, there was an arms race of sorts between the two parties on Capitol Hill to see who could be tougher on crime. Biden, then a Delaware senator, bragged at one point on the floor that a bill he wrote was so strict that it did “everything but hang people for jaywalking.”
“In 1994, Biden, authored the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act and would, for the next 20 years, defend what he called the ‘Biden bill.’ Signed by President Clinton, the law led to longer prison sentences, more prison cells, harsher policing, and higher incarceration rates for African Americans.”
In reference to that bill, which he called “racist,” Navarrette argued that it was the very foundation for which Kamala Harris built her political career on. While acting as San Francisco’s district attorney, she allegedly sat by idly as lawyers working underneath her were routinely accused of misconduct and unethical practices in order to win as many convictions as possible.
“Even if some innocent people went to jail,” he said.
His opinion further contended that Harris abused her status as a Black women to advance her career, and that she pandered to affluent white donors under the guise she would protect them from “people who looked like her.”
Biden and Harris is not the ticket he contended, offering one final point.
“As anyone who has been paying attention already knows, the theme of this rotten year is racial justice. America needs a fix to our criminal justice system, not another glaring reminder of just how broken it really is.”
No matter who Biden ultimately chooses as his running mate, the columnist still says president Donald Trump and the Republicans are at a disadvantage. He argued the country no longer has an appetite for divisive politics, which Trump used for much of his platform in 2016.
Following the death of George Floyd and the social unrest that followed, voters are looking to be brought together and no longer pitted against one another.