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Kamala Harris mentee who calls the VP 'auntie' wants to abolish prisons and defund the police By Political Reporter For The Daily Mail Published: 00:33 BST, 22 October 2024 | Updated: 00:33 BST, 22 October 2024 e-mail 1 View comments A long-time mentee of Vice President Kamala Harris who is supported by the 2024 hopeful has a progressive track record of seeking to erode law enforcement. Lateefah Simon, 47, has known Harris, 60, for two decades and refers to the vice president as 'auntie' – she is now running for Congress in California 's 12th Congressional District. Harris even officiated Simon's wedding and mentored her through getting her government job, according to a report from conservative outlet the Daily Caller .
The VP also campaigned for Simon in 2016 when running for the board of directors in California's Bay Area public train system. Among Simon's efforts were pushing to cut funding for law enforcement on public transit and expunging the criminal records of some first-time drug dealers. Simon told reporters in multiple interviews that Harris has made a big impact on her career.
Candidate for Congress Lateefah Simon, 47, speaks at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois on August 21 In a July interview with an NPR affiliate she described the vice president as 'a little bit mentor and a little bit family. '[Harris] is auntie status, she is mentor status,' Simon said. Read More Maria Shriver reveals shocking truth behind Kamala Harris' town hall when woman asks simple question Simon is seeking to replace retiring Congresswoman Barbara Lee in the House of Representatives for California's district that includes Oakland and Berkeley as well as other cities in the Bay Area.
She is running in the general election against fellow Democrat Jennifer Tran. Simon advocated for cutting funding for law enforcement on public transit by $2 million to instead shift toward using 'unarmed ambassadors' in the midst of the defund police movement following George Floyd's death in 2020, a San Francisco Chronicle report revealed. This happened despite 85 percent of riders in the Bay Area reporting they would use the public transportation system more if it were safer or cleaner, a 2023 poll revealed.
And half of riders said they had witnessed a crime on public transit. Simon says that Vice President Kamala Harris is like an 'auntie' to her and praised her 'mentor' for influencing her career so heavily 'This call for defunding and abolishing — it really means defund and abolish the way we did things before,' Simon said when speaking on her push to reduce the number of transit police in the Bay Area. Simon also brags on her campaign website about implementing 'progressive policing policies' during her time as a public transit official.
Harris hired Simon in 2005 to oversee a program in San Francisco's Attorney General's Office to expunge criminal records for first-time offenders charged with dealing illegal drugs. A Washington Free Beacon report revealed that in 2011 Simon became the program director of the Rosenberg Foundation, which partners with the liberal Open Society Foundations to advocate for decriminalizing drug dealing and retail theft. Politics Kamala Harris California Share or comment on this article: Kamala Harris mentee who calls the VP 'auntie' wants to abolish prisons and defund the police e-mail Add comment.
