Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, took on Harris’ record as a prosecutor, a subject that has fueled critiques from progressives.
“There are too many examples to cite, but she put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations and then laughed about it when asked if she ever smoked marijuana,” Gabbard said. “She kept people in prison beyond their sentences to use them as cheap labor for the state of California, and she fought to keep the tax bail system in place that impacts poor people in the worst kind of way.”
But Harris said that as attorney general of California, she worked to reform the system.
“I am proud of making a decision to not just give fancy speeches, or be in a legislative body and give speeches on a floor, but actually do the work of being in the position to use the power that I had to reform a system that is badly in need of reform,” she said.
Gabbard fired back that when Harris was “in a position to make a difference and an impact in these people’s lives, you did not.”
Gabbard added: “And worse yet, in the case of those who were on death row, innocent people, you actually blocked evidence from being revealed that would have freed them until you were forced to do so.”
Harris has already come under scrutiny for a 2010 scandal that led a judge to throw out more than 1,000 drug-related cases because of her office’s failure to disclose evidence to defendants.