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With California’s Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket, Golden State politicians took center stage at day one of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago where Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, Long Beach Congressmember Robert Garcia and Hawthorne Congressmember Maxine Waters delivered speeches.
California is sending almost 500 delegates, more than any other state, to the four-day event at the United Center where the vice president will thank delegates for their support and reintroduce herself and her platform to the nation.
“This is obviously a big moment for Vice President Harris and so her being from our state definitely adds another level of excitement for us Californians,” said Rep. Robert Garcia. “I’ve been running into many California delegates, including the delegates we have from Long Beach, and they are definitely excited to be here. I think everyone is fired up for the week ahead.”
Congressmember Maxine Waters, D-Hawthorne, highlighted the historic nature of Harris’s campaign. Harris is the first woman, Black person and person of South Asian descent to serve as vice president. If she wins in November, she will became America’s first female head of state.
Waters compared Harris to the civil and voting rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer who tried to get Black delegates included at the 1964 Democratic National Convention.
“Now, here we 60 years later, at another Democratic convention with Kamala Harris as our party’s nominee,” Waters said. “I know there is no better leader to marshal us into the future.”
Eighty-six-year-old congresswoman Waters is a trailblazer in her own right and was the first female and first Black chair of the House Financial Services Committee.
L.A. Mayor Karen Bass also spoke about how she and Harris smashed glass ceilings through their political careers.
“When I asked her to swear me in — the first woman vice president, swearing in the first woman mayor of Los Angeles — we knew we were sending a message to young girls everywhere that they too can lead,” said Bass.
In her speech, Bass discussed her two decades of partnership with Harris and their collective work to uplift disadvantaged children and foster youth across America.
“Our bond was forged years ago by a shared commitment to children, a belief that it is everyone’s responsibility to care for every child, no matter where they come from and no matter who their parents are,” she said.
Rep. Robert Garcia also spoke at the DNC on Monday — an honor for the freshman member of the congress who is considered by many to be a rising star in the party. In a raw and emotional address he discussed the pain of losing his parents to COVID-19 and the comfort Harris provided to him.
“I will never forget when Kamala Harris called me after my parents died, she told me about her own story about losing her own mother and that she was praying for me at that very moment,” Garcia said.
Garcia’s speech focused on contrasting former President Donald Trump’s approach during the pandemic to the approach taken by Biden and Harris.
“What we needed at that moment was national leadership, but instead we got Donald Trump,” said Garcia. “While schools closed and dead bodies filled morgues, Donald Trump downplayed the virus. He told us to inject bleach into our bodies, he peddled conspiracy theories across the country.”
The Long Beach congress member thanked the Biden-Harris administration for the successful rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine, the reopening of schools and revival of the economy.
Garcia has close ties with Harris, who swore him in when he was elected mayor of Long Beach in 2014. Recently he joined second gentleman Doug Emhoff as part of the presidential delegation to the Paris Olympics.
In the run-up to the election, Garcia plans to campaign for Harris in critical states around the country with a focusing on energizing LGBTQ+ and Latino voters, he said.
“It’s great to see the rest of the country get to know the Kamala Harris that I know, which is someone who is tough and brilliant and cares about about people — especially working people,” said Garcia.
The headlining speech on Monday came from President Joe Biden, who has put his full weight behind Harris after withdrawing in July.
Harris made a brief appearance Monday to thank Biden and is expected to deliver her own address after formally accepting the party’s nomination on Thursday evening. Although Harris became the party’s nominee during a virtual roll call vote on Aug. 6, it is tradition to also take the vote in person at the convention.
Governor Gavin Newsom will also attend the convention and is expected to deliver a speech after casting his delegate vote for Harris on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Los Angeles City Council meetings were cancelled this week because members Bob Blumenfield, Monica Rodriguez, Marqueece Harris-Dawson, Curren Price and Heather Hutt are all attending the convention.
Blumenfield told City News Service it was great that Harris, who has a home in Brentwood, is the party’s presidential nominee because she is “close to many of us in the L.A. delegation and understands our issues.”
“I think that’s going to be a great benefit to Los Angeles,” Blumenfield said.
Business in Sacramento will continue as usual during the convention as there are less than two weeks left to get bills passed and onto the governor’s desk.
However, a delegation of 21 state Assembly and state Senate members will make a quick trip to Chicago to attend the DNC.
Among them are many key Southern California legislators. From the Senate they include Toni Atkins (San Diego), Lola Smallwood-Cuevas (Los Angeles), Steven Bradford, (Inglewood) and Caroline Menjivar (Van Nuys). Assemblymembers include Sabrina Cervantes (Corona), Mike Fong, (Alhambra), Chris Holden (Pasadena), Jacqui Irwin (Thousand Oaks), Luz Rivas (Arleta), Tina McKinnor (Inglewood), Cottie Petrie-Norris (Irvine) and Akilah Weber (La Mesa).
“The vice president is inspiring a ‘Eureka!’ moment for the entire nation,” Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas said in a statement. “We’re all proud that a fellow Californian is leading the country forward, and it’s an honor to send a diverse Assembly coalition that includes so many trailblazing women to witness Kamala Harris make history.”
Trump has been sharply critical of California’s leaders for years, and on Monday at a factory in York, Pennsylvania he slammed Harris on the economy and illegal immigration.
City News Service contributed to this article
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