Opinion by Kamala D. Harris Kamala D. Harris is the vice president of the United States. Last September, I had the chance to talk with culinary workers at a virtual town hall. One of those workers was M. Rocha, who used to work at a hotel on the Las Vegas Strip. When the pandemic hit last March, like so many in the tourism and hospitality industry, she was furloughed. She's still not back on the job today. She has a wife, son and elderly mother she takes care of, and they all depend on her paycheck. M. Rocha is not alone. About 2.5 million women have lost their jobs or dropped out of the workforce during the pandemic. That's enough to fill 40 football stadiums. This mass exodus of women from the workforce is a national emergency, and it demands a national solution. Job loss, small business closings and a lack of child care have created a perfect storm for women workers. Women who work in industries such as hospitality and health care are losing their jobs. Women in lower-wage jobs -- those living below the federal poverty level -- have been hit hardest. These workers, many of them women of color, have been undervalued and underpaid for too long. And now too many of them are out of work. Then there are women who own and work at small businesses -- the fabric of our communities. We've all felt the loss when businesses in our neighborhoods have closed this past year. In February 2020, around 5 million women were business owners. By April, 1 in 4 had closed their doors. My first week in office as vice president, I checked in with Caitlin James, whom I had met last fall. Along with her sisters, she co-founded a juice company in Royal Oak, Mich. They've been able to keep their company up and running, she told me, but she also talked about how difficult it is for women entrepreneurs to juggle responsibilities at work and at home during the pandemic. In fact, throughout our conversation on Zoom, she held her baby in her arms. The pandemic has touched every part of our lives. Families everywhere are shouldering a huge burden as homes have become classrooms and child-care centers, and uncertainty plagues each day. Because of that, many working women have been forced to cut their hours or leave their jobs entirely. Even those who've managed to keep working full-time are stretched. Before the pandemic, working mothers already had it tough. Now, it seems nearly impossible. This is not acceptable. And for me, it's personal. When I was growing up, every day and often on weekends, my mother left home to go work in the lab as a breast cancer scientist. And every day, my sister and I went to Mrs. Regina Shelton's, who became a second mother to us. My mother had two goals in her life: to raise her daughters and to end breast cancer. For my mother to go to work, she needed to know her daughters were well cared for. Without affordable and accessible child care, working mothers are forced to make an unfair choice. We have to make sure all working mothers have the support they need -- during the pandemic and after. Because here's the truth: Our economy cannot fully recover unless women can fully participate. Studies have shown that our gross domestic product could be 5 percent higher if women participated in the workforce at the same rate as men. And every day that women are out of work, unlocking that potential becomes harder. When we lift up women, we lift up families, we lift up communities and all of society benefits. This is true in the United States and around the globe. The American Rescue Plan, which President Biden and I announced before we were sworn in, will tackle the most urgent needs of the American people, particularly women workers. It will get $1,400 in checks to those who need it and at least $3,000 to parents for each of their children. The plan includes unemployment insurance and housing assistance. It provides funding to help schools safely reopen and makes a big investment in child care to help providers keep their doors open or reopen them. And it will make sure that vaccines are available and accessible to everyone. Some have said that our plan is too big. But as the president has put it, "The biggest risk is not going too big, it's if we go too small." The pandemic has created a perfect storm for women workers, but it's different than a hurricane that has come and gone. It's still raging. The longer we wait to act, the harder it will be to bring those millions of women back into the workforce. At 5 a.m. on Feb. 5, I cast my first tiebreaking vote in the Senate to advance this plan. Now, members of the House and Senate are working on getting the bill passed -- and we're pushing them to move fast. M. Rocha, Caitlin James and women everywhere are counting on us. It's time to get to work to get women back to work.

By Kamala Harris The first time I came to work in the United States Senate was not as a United States Senator but as an intern. A college sophomore, I believed the Senate was a place to turn activism into action. I went to work as a summer intern for my homestate Senator, California's Alan Cranston, in the very same office I returned to more than 30 years later. Serving as your Senator has been an honor. The past four years have tested us as a nation. Even before I was sworn in we knew that foreign adversaries had interfered in the 2016 election. Soon thereafter, families were being separated at the border, and our work to combat climate change was being dismantled. Since then, three Supreme Court nominees have come before the Senate Judiciary committee on which I have sat. Wildfires have ravaged our state, racial injustice continues to plague our nation, and COVID-19 plagues the world. This month, we witnessed something I thought I would never see in the United States: A mob breached the U.S. Capitol, trying to thwart the certification of the 2020 election results. The violence made clear that we have two systems of justice -- one that failed to restrain the rioters on January 6 and another that released tear gas on non-violent demonstrators last summer. These have not been easy times by any stretch. I am proud that, through it all, my office has maintained its focus, working tirelessly for the people of California. We have taken on critical issues facing Californians and all Americans: rising rent costs, devastating hunger, unjust cash bail, economic insecurity, maternal healthcare, among others. Senators Cory Booker, Tim Scott, and I passed anti-lynching legislation through the Senate. And just last December, with Senators Mark Warner and Cory Booker, we passed legislation that will provide much-needed capital to communities of color and low-income communities during the pandemic. From helping seniors navigate the Medicare system to helping veterans get the benefits they are owed, from securing funding for families to rebuild after the wildfires to working to get small businesses what they need to stay afloat -- my team heard you, we saw you, and we fought for you. Thank you, California, for that privilege. Know that Alex Padilla will carry on this work. And this is not goodbye. Today, as I resign from the Senate, I am preparing to take an oath that would have me preside over it. As Senator-turned-Vice-President Walter Mondale once pointed out, the vice presidency is the only office in our government that "belongs to both the executive branch and the legislative branch." A responsibility made greater with an equal number of Democrats and Republicans in the Senate. Since our nation's founding, only 268 tie-breaking votes have been cast by a Vice President. I intend to work tirelessly as your Vice President, including, if necessary, fulfilling this Constitutional duty. At the same time, it is my hope that rather than come to the point of a tie, the Senate will instead find common ground and do the work of the American people. Just a year before I interned in the Senate, Martin Luther King Jr. Day was made a federal holiday. The legislation did not sail through Congress by any means. There was a heated debate and a fair amount of grandstanding. In the end, the Democratic-led House passed the bill, the Republican-controlled Senate did the same, and the Republican president signed it into law. Now, we have the pastor from the very church Dr. King preached in -- the eleventh Black Senator since Reconstruction, out of nearly 2,000 Senators total -- about to be sworn in. And with him, the first Jewish Senator from the Deep South since the 19th century. Change is possible. For that, I am grateful and ready to get to work. Thus, as I leave the United States Senate, this is not goodbye. This is hello.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Gretchen Whitmer wanted out. The Michigan governor had caught the interest of Joe Biden and his vice presidential vetting committee, who were drawn to her prominence in a crucial battleground state and her aggressive response to the coronavirus outbreak there. But by late spring, the nation was in the midst of a reckoning over race and inequality following the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died after a white police officer pressed his knee into his neck for several minutes. Whitmer sent word to Biden’s team that while she was flattered, she no longer wanted to be considered for the running mate slot, according to a high-ranking Democrat familiar with the process. She recommended Biden pick a Black woman. But Biden still wanted Whitmer in the mix, and he personally called her in mid-June to ask if she would continue on to the second, more intensive round of vetting, according to the official. Whitmer agreed. But forces in the country, and within the Democratic Party, were indeed pushing Biden toward a history-making pick. As protests over the death of Floyd and other Black Americans filled the streets across the country, an array of Democrats urged Biden to put a Black woman on the ticket — a nod to this moment in the nation’s history, to the critical role Black voters played in Biden’s ascent to the Democratic nomination, and to their vital importance in his general election campaign against President Donald Trump. On Tuesday, Biden tapped California Sen. Kamala Harris to be his running mate, making her the first Black woman to serve on a major party presidential ticket. This account of how he made that decision, the most important of his political career, is based on interviews with 10 people with direct knowledge of the vetting and selection process. Most spoke on condition of anonymity to disclose private conversations and deliberations. Biden, well aware of the potential pitfalls of being a 77-year-old white male standard-bearer of a party increasingly comprised of women, people of color and young voters, made clear even before he had clinched the Democratic nomination that his running mate would be a woman. His initial list of possible contenders was sprawling: roughly 20 governors, senators, congresswomen, mayors and other Democratic stalwarts. They were young and old; Black, Hispanic, white, Asian; straight and gay. Some, including Harris, had competed against Biden for the Democratic nomination. From the start, some Biden advisers saw Harris as a logical choice. She was among the party’s most popular figures, a deft debater and a fundraising juggernaut. She had been thoroughly vetted during her own campaign and Biden’s team expected there would be few surprises if she was the pick. Indeed, Harris’ potential downsides were well-known to Biden advisers. Her record as a prosecutor in California was already viewed skeptically by some younger Democrats during the primary and would face even more scrutiny against the backdrop of a national debate over inequality in the criminal justice system. There were also nagging questions about Harris’ most high-profile moment of the primary campaign — a harsh and deeply personal broadside against Biden over his position on school busing in the 1970s. Though Biden would later brush the moment aside as campaign tactics, the attack was said to have stunned the former vice president, who had considered his relationship with Harris strong. It also raised concern among a small cadre of Biden advisers that Harris would be eyeing the Oval Office herself from the start, a particular worry given that Biden has not firmly committed to serving two terms if elected in November. And so, as spring turned to summer, a string of other Black women would take a turn in the spotlight as Biden weighed his options. Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and Florida Rep. Val Demings impressed Biden’s team with their leadership during the police brutality protests. Some House Democrats — including South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn, a close Biden confidant — advocated for Rep. Karen Bass, a Californian who chairs the Congressional Black Caucus. Biden also took a strong interest in Susan Rice, with whom he worked closely when she served in the White House as President Barack Obama’s national security adviser. The leading contenders, who also included Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth, submitted reams of financial records, texts of speeches and other personal information. Biden’s selection team canvassed a vast array of Democrats to ask for their views on the candidates’ temperament and families, then grilled the candidates on much of the same. Biden, too, regularly discussed his potential pick with his sprawling network of friends and advisers. He used Obama in particular as a sounding board, though confidants to both men say the former president was careful not to tip his hand in those conversations as to whom he preferred. But in private, Obama suggested to others that he believed Harris was the favorite. ___ In one of Harris’ conversations with the vetting committee, Chris Dodd — a longtime Biden friend who served alongside him in the Senate — asked if she had remorse for her debate stage attack on his busing record. Harris, as she had previously done so publicly, brushed it aside as simply politics. Dodd, a member of the running mate selection committee, was put off and let that be known. The incident was first reported by Politico and confirmed to The Associated Press by a person with direct knowledge. The public disclosure of Dodd’s comments angered some of the highest-ranking women on Biden’s campaign team. Some of Harris’ allies also mobilized to defend her, including California Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, who organized a call with Biden’s vetting team about two weeks ago to assuage any doubts about whether the senator was the right choice for the ticket. On the 45-minute call, Kounalakis and other statewide officials, labor and business leaders took turns sharing their personal histories with Harris and their impressions of her as a leader. “Speaking out as strongly as we did, collectively, helped them understand how supported she is and why,” Kounalakis said on Tuesday. The call ended with Biden’s vetting team telling the Harris supporters that they had all recommended her as one of the top candidates for the job.___ The pandemic had largely grounded Biden in his home state of Delaware throughout the summer, and also upended some of the ways he had expected to build a rapport with the running-mate contenders. There were no joint rallies or carefully orchestrated, yet casual-looking, outings to local restaurants in battleground states. Biden was also accepting few in-person visitors at his home. But he did want to speak one-on-one with the women who had made it through the vetting process and interviews with his selection committee. He would hold conversations with 11 women in the final nine days before he made his pick — a mixture of in-person meetings and video teleconferences. Whitmer was among those who flew to Delaware for an in-person audience. She boarded a private plane in Lansing, Michigan, on Aug. 2, spending just a few hours on the ground before returning to Michigan. Rice, who had perhaps the closest personal relationship with Biden of all the contenders, spoke twice with Biden in recent days. Duckworth also had a formal interview over the weekend, as did Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams, who was initially viewed as a leading contender for the job. On Tuesday, in the hours before his campaign announced Harris as the pick, Biden would call each of those women to inform them that they had not been selected. Warren, whose relationship with Biden has deepened in recent months through regular policy discussions, was also among those to receive a personal call from the former vice president. In some of the conversations, Biden left open an opportunity. Please consider joining me in another role in the administration, he said. ___ Eggert reported from Lansing, Mich., and Ronayne from Sacramento, Calif. Associated Press writers Bill Barrow in Atlanta, Will Weissert in Wilmington, Del., and Laurie Kellman in Washington contributed to this report.Source: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/