A Woman On The Rise

The U.S. Senator Has All the Makings of a Political Star Who Could One Day Reside at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

- Bene Viera

Kamala Harris is a woman of many firsts. Her resumé is so impressive, it’s no surprise former President Barack Obama is a fan. The repertoire looks like this: First female elected district attorney in San Francisco in 2003. First woman and first woman of color to serve as California’s attorney general. First Indian woman (Harris identifies as Black and South Asian-American) to be elected to the U.S. Senate in 2016.

It would seem extraordinary if her South Asian-American mother hadn’t somewhat predicted it. To prepare her daughter, she’d repeat a mantra, “You may be the first to do many things, make sure you aren’t the last,” Harris told CQ Roll Call. It makes sense that being the first many times over would become her destiny.

Unless you’re a political junkie, the California Democrat may have slipped past your radar—that is, until she became the star of this summer’s U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee’s hearings on President Donald Trump’s campaign and alleged Russian collusion. Harris, 52, was the only senator interrupted by her male colleagues as she questioned Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein and Attorney General JeffSessions. Despite her 25-year career in law enforcement, the good ol’ boys club took umbrage at a woman, a Black mixed-raced woman, asking tough questions in search of the truth. But the more she was interrupted, the more news commentators used sexist-coded language, such as “hysterical” to describe her, the more of an internet sensation she became. The internet had her back.