ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
More than 20 years ago, Lateefah Simon ran a San Francisco nonprofit serving young women in the criminal justice system, which is how she met a prosecutor named Kamala Harris. They served on a task force together to change city policy and stop charging young victims of sex trafficking with crimes.
LATEEFAH SIMON: I really believed in her. The young women that I worked with believed in her. But never in a million years did I think that I would work for her.
SHAPIRO: Simon, who is now running for Congress, considers Harris a mentor. And Harris today is a Democratic presidential candidate with the shortest campaign in modern U.S. history, while the Republican nominee, Donald Trump, has been well-known for decades. So all week, we're talking with people about chapters in Harris' life before she came to Washington as a senator in a series called I Knew Her When. In 2004, Kamala Harris became San Francisco's district attorney, the first woman in the city's history to do that job. She asked Lateefah Simon to come work for her, and Simon wasn't so sure.
SIMON: Being a reformer, a activist, a organizer, a young Black woman, a teenage mom - all those things - I would've never thought that I would've worked for a district attorney. You know, from the first couple of months that she was in office, she asked me what I think about coming over and doing what I was doing at the Young Women's Freedom Center and incorporating some of that work inside of her office. I said no a lot of times. And finally, you know, she...
SHAPIRO: Wait, you said no? She asked you to come work for her and you said no?
SIMON: At least three or four times.
SHAPIRO: Really?
SIMON: But there was a retort.
SHAPIRO: (Laughter) So she - nevertheless, she persisted.
SIMON: Nevertheless. She called me one day, and she was like, you know, this is my last time asking. Lateefah, you could either carry this bullhorn on your back for the rest of your life demanding that elected officials work for you and the young people that you care about, or you could become a part of my team, and we can actually deconstruct some of these inequities. And I got to tell you, you know, it's like, what do you say to that?
SHAPIRO: This is so interesting because it really speaks to whether you try to make change from the outside or the inside, and you were committed to trying to do it from the outside, and she said, no, no, no, we can do more on the inside.
SIMON: You know, the vice president now understands and did back then, we need inside and outside strategies to try to create systems that really speak and protect all people. The first day that I came into that office, I mean, a couple amazing things happened that were life-changing to me that day. One, she sent me home because I was wearing - I was dressed down. And as an organizer, I used to wear a backpack and a sweatsuit and sneakers. And she said, if you're going to work for the people, you have to come as your very best. Politicians show up to communities of color, poor communities, dressed down. You are being paid by the very victims and survivors through tax dollars to represent them. You will come with everything that you have every day. She sent me home.
SHAPIRO: She sent you home to change your clothes on your first day at work?
SIMON: Let me tell you something, when we say Kamala is tough, that's what I mean. She expects the best. I come back the next morning thinking that I might be fired.
SHAPIRO: (Laughter) For not having a suit?
SIMON: She went behind her desk and she had a bag, and in that bag was a beautiful gray suit. And back then - this is almost 20 years ago - I was a size 2. It was my size, and she had a beautiful scarf. And she said, you know, we lift as we climb, Lateefah. You know, I sent you home so that you understood this is big government, and government is not the enemy. Government can be the prize. We developed a program that I still believe is one of the best government interventions as an antidote to the drug war that exists.
SHAPIRO: I want to ask about that program. But before we get there, she said to you, we have an opportunity to change these systems that have oppressed people like us for a long time.
SIMON: Yeah.
SHAPIRO: And as you know, there are many of her critics on the left who say, instead of changing those systems, instead of fixing those systems, she was coopted by those systems and she furthered those systems. What do you say to that criticism?
SIMON: I really would hope that in her run for presidency, we can tell the true story to what Kamala Harris did over 20 years ago. The DA's office that she ran no doubt was tough. She was very clear, if you kill a man, you rape a child, you hurt an elderly person, there must be consequences. We have to create a better system of accountability, but what we have now, we have to hold you accountable. She was the first ever in California to understand, as the top cop of a county, that a system was broken and we needed to do everything from inside to shift the patterns and practices - especially for the young men that I was working for, 18 to 25, who were arrested on their first time felony convictions. Look, California law said that they should be imprisoned for 20 years for selling crack cocaine. Kamala was like, no, we're going to create a program to address the root cause - they can't find jobs.
SHAPIRO: So you worked with Vice President Harris when she was DA to create this program called Back on Track...
SIMON: Yes, I did.
SHAPIRO: ...Which gives nonviolent offenders the chance to get a high school diploma and job training instead of prison sentences.
SIMON: And get a job and health care and child care. Listen, she was clear with me that Back on Track, we will not design a program that's a get out of jail free card. These young people are going to have to work very hard because we need to prove that we can do something that the California prison system can't do, is rehabilitate.
SHAPIRO: OK, I want you to tell me a story about the first graduation.
SIMON: Oh, my gosh (laughter).
SHAPIRO: And the robes. What happened?
SIMON: Oh, you've heard about this?
(LAUGHTER)
SIMON: So, you know, listen, we had no budget for this program. I had my first set of graduates, I mean, maybe about 65, 70 young people. And we were going through the agenda for the graduation. And she said, this looks like a little nonprofit graduation. No, this is the first graduation that many of these young people have ever gone through. Lateefah, where are the robes? And I said, robes?
SHAPIRO: (Laughter).
SIMON: She said, no, you're going to find robes. You're going to find cap and gowns.
SHAPIRO: (Laughter) So you found the robes.
SIMON: I had to find robes within six hours, press them. Well, I brought them back to the office, and she said they're wrinkled.
SHAPIRO: (Laughter).
SIMON: You know, if you've ever worked for DA, then attorney general, U.S. senator and now Vice President Harris, you know that the reason she sent me home that first day is she believes that it's an honor and a privilege to work for the folks in our communities.
SHAPIRO: I can tell you love her, and also, she sounds like a tough boss.
SIMON: Yeah. Yeah. She better be.
SHAPIRO: When you got the news that President Biden was ending his reelection campaign and that your mentor of all these years, your close friend, was likely to be the Democratic nominee for president, what went through your head?
SIMON: Well, I want to make it clear, if you were to ask the vice president, she's like, Lateefah is not my friend. She's aunty, she's aunty status to me.
(LAUGHTER)
SIMON: My relationship with Kamala Harris - she is a mentor. She's someone I look up to. My eldest daughter is a prosecutor, much in part because she was sitting in Kamala's office for years when I was working for her (laughter). Kamala would say, if the children are here past 6 and you have to pick up your kid, send them into my office.
SHAPIRO: She would say, stay late at work, but you can bring in the kid?
SIMON: You could bring your baby, but bring them into my office. We would bring the kids into the front office, and they would hang out with Auntie Kamala. So absolutely, I'm fired up more than I was just two weeks ago. My phone is going off every day all day with folks trying to figure out - regular folks - how to help. She has invigorated our party and our nation. I'm excited.
SHAPIRO: Well, Lateefah Simon, thank you for taking time away from your own congressional campaign to talk with us about your auntie, Kamala Harris. It's been great talking with you.
SIMON: Thank you so much for having me.
(SOUNDBITE OF MALIK B AND MR. GREEN SONG, "DEFINITION")
SHAPIRO: And tomorrow, we continue the series I Knew Her When with a former boss to Harris.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: I was looking for somebody who not only would be a tough prosecutor but also somebody who was kind and compassionate.
(SOUNDBITE OF MALIK B AND MR. GREEN SONG, "DEFINITION") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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