By the time Californians elected Kamala Harris as attorney general in 2010, the subprime mortgage crisis had hit their state harder than any other, with 2.2 million homeowners underwater.
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| Proud to represent Harris’s home state, IBEW members from California’s delegation to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago show their enthusiasm on the floor of the United Center. Their florescent shirts, donned by IBEW delegates from across the country, glowed in the dark when the lights dimmed inside the arena.
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Union families had no more protection than their neighbors against the Wall Street bankers whose greed collapsed the housing market. Rejecting a $2 billion settlement, Harris battled the predatory lenders until they coughed up 10 times as much in reparations.
Identifying borrowers who'd been swindled was another herculean task. Harris needed trusted, experienced canvassers to go door to door, and she knew where to find them.
"She turned to us to help bridge the gap with the community," said Bob Dean, business manager of Vacaville, Calif., Local 1245, which spans Northern California. "So many working people had lost their homes or were on the verge of losing them, and they needed to know that help was available and how to get it."
The local dispatched an army of organizing stewards, earning Harris' gratitude and respect. "I think it deepened her understanding of unions and who and what we fight for," Dean said. "She's become one of labor's strongest and most powerful allies, and we see it every day on the campaign trail."
Harris grew up in a Bay Area rental home with an immigrant mother who took her to civil rights marches and instilled a robust sense of justice and fair play.
She carried those values into her career, rising from deputy prosecutor to San Francisco's elected district attorney to state attorney general, taking on banks, drug companies, insurers, hospitals and for-profit colleges that defrauded working-class consumers out of billions of dollars.
Along the way, her bonds with the union movement kept growing, nourished by friends she'd made at the IBEW.
Brian D'Arcy, retired business manager of Los Angeles Local 18, met Harris at a dinner on the cusp of her run for attorney general.
"She walked into the restaurant with that infectious smile and was so engaging and smart," D'Arcy said. "After that, she started showing up at my office, sometimes unannounced, and we'd hang out and talk for a couple of hours."
Topics included Harris's concern about the disparate number of young Black men trapped by the criminal justice system in a cycle of poverty and incarceration.
"At the time, I was working on a utility pre-craft training program that gave students a paycheck while learning about all aspects of water and power, and also remedial reading and math, to get them ready for any number of entry-level jobs," D'Arcy said. "She was fascinated by that."
Today, Harris is a champion of union apprenticeships. As a U.S. senator, she backed bills to expand them and has been on a self-described mission as vice president to visit as many IBEW training centers as possible.
She hails the programs in speeches and seizes moments like the one Carol Kim witnessed last year.
Kim, business manager of the San Diego Building and Construction Trades Council and a member of San Diego Local 569, had waited with an ironworker friend in a long receiving line for Harris at a holiday event.
"She was tired by the time we got up there, and I don't blame her for that at all. She'd been doing it for hours," said Kim, expecting only a fleeting encounter.
"I shook her hand and then introduced Jennifer as a journeywoman ironworker who teaches apprenticeship readiness programs for union trades," she said. "Kamala's face lit up. She just came to life and engaged with her in such a meaningful way. They chit-chatted so long that the staff started circling."
Kim first met Harris earlier in 2023 when the vice president and her staff hosted a group of California building trades leaders at the White House.
"She was terrific in that meeting, very strong, on point, and she knew the issues," Kim said. "She talked about PLAs. She understood why we need to continue the critical investments in infrastructure and how the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS Act have impacted all of us and are supporting our members with good, union jobs."
Observing Harris in the national spotlight and thinking back on their talks years ago, D'Arcy said she is the same razor-sharp, focused, compassionate public servant she's always been. He's baffled by the absurdity of her opponents' lies and smears claiming otherwise.
"It's all bizarro world," D'Arcy said. "She's one of the most intelligent people I've ever sat down with, and there's nothing fake about her. I've talked to a lot of politicians over the past 30 years, and I can tell you that Kamala Harris is the real deal.”