30 Interesting Facts About Kamala Harris You Probably Didn’t Know Before

Kamala Harris, the 49th and current vice president of the United States, is the first female vice president and the highest-ranking female official in U.S. history. She is the first African American and first Asian American vice president in U.S. history. She broke Mike Pence's record for tie-breaking votes in the first year of a vice presidency, when she cast the seventh tie-breaking vote in her first six months, on July 20, 2021. She served as acting president from 10:10 to 11:35 am EST, while President Biden underwent a colonoscopy on November 19, 2021, becoming the first woman, and the third person overall, to assume the powers and duties of the U.S. presidency under Section 3 of the Twenty-fifth Amendment. Here are some really interesting facts about her that you might have missed before:

"Kamala Harris" by Gage Skidmore is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

1.  She assumed office as vice president of the United States on January 20, 2021, becoming the second person of color to hold the post, preceded by Charles Curtis.
2.  Her first act as vice president was swearing in her replacement Alex Padilla and Georgia senators Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, who were elected in the 2021 Georgia runoff elections.
3.  She announced her candidacy for the 2016 United States Senate election in California, after Senator Barbara Boxer announced that she would not run for reelection.
4.  In 2011, she announced the creation of the Mortgage Fraud Strike Force in the wake of the 2010 United States foreclosure crisis.
5.  She obtained two of the largest recoveries in the history of California's False Claims Act – $241 million from Quest Diagnostics and then $323 million from the SCAN healthcare network.
6.  Kamala Devi Harris was born on October 20, 1964 to Donald J. Harris and Shyamala Gopalan, in Oakland, California. She lived with her sister Maya in Berkeley, California.
7.  Her father, a Stanford University professor emeritus of economics, arrived in the United States from British Jamaica in 1961 for graduate study at UC Berkeley, receiving a PhD in economics in 1966.
8.  Her mother, a Tamil Indian biologist had arrived in the United States from India in 1958 as a 19-year-old graduate student in nutrition and endocrinology at the University of California, Berkeley, and received her PhD in 1964.
9.  In fact, it is her mother Shyamala Gopalan’s work on the progesterone receptor gene that stimulated advances in breast cancer research.
10.  Harris has been strongly influenced by her maternal grandfather P. V. Gopalan, a retired Indian civil servant whose progressive views on democracy and women's rights impressed her.

"Kamala Harris" by Gage Skidmore is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

11.  At the time she started her kindergarten, she was bused as part of Berkeley's comprehensive desegregation program to Thousand Oaks Elementary School, in northern Berkeley.
12.  Her parents divorced when she was around seven years old. By the time, she was twelve, she and her sister moved with their mother to Montreal, Quebec.
13.  Her mother had accepted a research and teaching position at the McGill University-affiliated Jewish General Hospital.
14.  She attended a French-speaking primary school, Notre-Dame-des-Neiges, then F.A.C.E. School, and finally Westmount High School in Westmount, Quebec, graduating in 1981.
15.  In 1982, she attended Howard University, a historically black university in Washington, D.C, from where she graduated with a degree in political science and economics in 1986.
16.  During her time at Howard University, she interned as a mailroom clerk for California senator Alan Cranston, chaired the economics society, led the debate team, and joined Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.
17.  Following her graduation from Howard, she returned to California to attend law school at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law through its Legal Education Opportunity Program (LEOP).
18.  At UC Hastings, she served as president of its chapter of the Black Law Students Association. She graduated with a Juris Doctor in the year 1989, and was admitted to the California Bar in June 1990.
19.  She was immediately hired as a deputy district attorney in Alameda County, California and four years later, was appointed to the state Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board and later to the California Medical Assistance Commission, by the Speaker of the California Assembly Willie Brown.
20.  In February 1998, San Francisco district attorney Terence Hallinan recruited Harris as an assistant district attorney, following which she became the chief of the Career Criminal Division, supervising five other attorneys.

"GOTV Event with Senator Kamala Harris at Renaissance High School - Detroit, MI - March 9, 2020" by Biden For President is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

21.  She prepared to run for District Attorney of San Francisco against Hallinan (the incumbent) and Bill Fazio in the year 2002 and even persuaded the Central Committee to withhold its endorsement from Hallinan.
22.  In 2008, she announced her plans to run for the 2010 California Attorney General election, stating that she would run only if then-Attorney General Jerry Brown did not seek re-election.
23.  In the June 8, 2010 primary, she was nominated with 33.6 percent of the vote, defeating Alberto Torrico and Chris Kelly. She faced Republican Los Angeles County district attorney Steve Cooley in the general election.
24.  Harris was sworn in on January 3, 2011, becoming the first woman, the first African American, and the first South Asian American to hold the office of Attorney General in the state's history.
25.  She had been considered a top contender and potential frontrunner for the 2020 Democratic nomination for president, and was quoted as “not ruling it out” in June 2018.
26.  On January 21, 2019, Harris officially announced her candidacy for president of the United States in the 2020 United States presidential election.
27.  Just in the first 24 hours after her candidacy announcement, she tied a record set by Bernie Sanders in 2016 for the most donations raised in the day following an announcement.
28.  On December 3, 2019, Harris withdrew from seeking the 2020 Democratic nomination, citing a shortage of funds. In March 2020, Harris endorsed Joe Biden for president.
29.  Biden announced that he had chosen Harris, as his running mate on August 11, 2020, with which she became the first African American, the first Indian American, and the third woman after Geraldine Ferraro and Sarah Palin to be picked as the vice-presidential nominee for a major party ticket.
30.  As of November 2021, Harris has cast 13 tie-breaking votes during her first year as vice president in office, the most tie-breaking votes in a single year in U.S. history, surpassing John Adams who cast 12 votes in 1790.
31.  Kamala Harris Net Worth: $28 Million