Kamala Harris - For California Attorney General 2010

LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa Endorses Kamala Harris as Attorney General

Mayor of California’s Largest City says Harris his Choice for California’s Top Cop

(LOS ANGELES) – Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa today announced his endorsement of San Francisco District Attorney Kamala D. Harris in her candidacy for California Attorney General.  The Mayor announced his support in a press conference with DA Harris on the steps of Los Angeles City Hall.

 “Our state is in a very challenging time right now, and we need leaders in California who have a proven track record of getting things done and the ability to fix problems with new and innovative solutions,” said Mayor Villaraigosa.  “Kamala Harris is such a leader.  Kamala has spent her entire professional life in the trenches as a courtroom prosecutor, and she has raised conviction rates in her community to the highest in 15 years.   She has launched initiatives in her community that are helping to prevent crime, save money and serve as models for other District Attorney’s offices throughout the country.  She has the proven ability to work with her colleagues throughout the state to pass innovative legislation that has helped to modernize our penal code.  She will take on the mortgage companies and others who commit financial fraud, she will go after corporations who break labor laws, she will bring reforms to our criminal justice system so we don't spend tens of billions of dollars annually on a broken prison system.”

 

“I am honored to have the endorsement of Los Angeles Mayor Villaraigosa,” said DA Harris.  “As Mayor of California’s largest city and a longtime respected leader in our state, Mayor Villaraigosa knows what we need to ensure California is on track for the future.  Mayor Villaraigosa’s leadership serves as an example of bringing people together to tackle big problems – most notably in job creation, the environment and transportation -- and he is a national leader in decreasing the crime rate for his community.”

 

In 2005, Villaraigosa ran for Mayor of Los Angeles on a platform of bringing the City together to take on the big challenges.  He was elected on May 17, 2005 and sworn in as Mayor on July 1, 2005.

During his first term, Mayor Villaraigosa built the police force to its largest size in history, oversaw the steepest reduction in crime since the 1950’s, and developed Los Angeles’ first comprehensive anti-gang strategy. 

With the launching of GREEN LA, the Mayor set Los Angeles on the path to becoming one of the greenest big cities in the nation.  The City has met the Kyoto targets for reducing greenhouse gases four years ahead of schedule and put into place the most aggressive green building program of any large city.

Teaming up with transportation leaders throughout Los Angeles County, Mayor Villaraigosa led the effort to pass a once-in-a-generation investment in the mass transit system of Los Angeles.  With the passage of Measure R, LA County is poised to invest in $40 billion in new transit, rail and highways.   On March 3, 2009, Mayor Villaraigosa was re-elected and took the oath for a second term on July 1, 2009.

 “Today I join a growing number of Los Angeles leaders selecting Harris as our next Attorney General, including former LAPD Chief Bill Bratton, City Council President Eric Garcetti and Controller Wendy Greuel.  Just this week, California SEIU and the California Nurses Association also endorsed Harris. All who support Kamala will be working the phones, pounding the pavement and doing whatever it takes to make sure she wins, because California needs her.”

As San Francisco’s District Attorney, Harris has used her nearly 20 years of prosecutorial experience to focus intensively on fighting violent crime.   This work is paying off --- according to the California Department of Justice, the office’s overall felony conviction rate is at its highest point in nearly 15 years.

In addition, as she enters her seventh year as San Francisco's District Attorney, the "Smart on Crime" approach Kamala has pioneered continues to serve as a model for the nation to reform our criminal justice system.  Kamala's Back on Track initiative, for example, has achieved nationwide recognition for its successes in reducing recidivism among a population of first-time, low-level, nonviolent drug offenders by giving them important life skills and re-entering them back into productive society.  And in her fight against school truancy, San Francisco schools have showed a 23 percent drop in the number of elementary schoolchildren skipping classes.

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