Jo Freeman Writes: The Political Parentage of Kamala Harris

Kamala with her mother

Much has been written about Kamala Harris' biological parents. Of her political parentage, not so much. She has said that she is a child of the civil rights movement because her parents participated in demonstrations while they were grad students at Berkeley in the early 1960s. They may have been in the 1964 Free Speech Movement, but no interviewer asked about that. Her political parents were quite different. Kamala Harris’ nomination to be Vice President of the United States is a legacy of the Burton Machine and the Women's Liberation Movement.

Kamala Harris with her mother

Since few have heard of the Burton Machine, I will start there. It began with Phil Burton, who was elected to the California Assembly in 1956 on his second try, with help from his wife, Sala and brothers John and Bob. They brought into their group John's friends Willie Brown and George Moscone, whom he met in the Young Democrats (YDs) while they were students at San Francisco State College. All except Bob would be elected to important political positions within a couple decades.

The Burton Machine was based on ideology, not patronage. Its adherents pushed for legislation which helped unions, the poor and minorities. Initially the laws they pursued represented an extension of New Deal welfare legislation. Over time, new issues like ending discrimination against women and gay rights were added to the mix.

The BM’s success lay in persuading middle-class liberals, especially those in the liberal clubs of the California Democratic Council (CDC) and the YDs, to spend hours doing mailings and knocking on doors to elect the Burton brothers and the candidates that they supported. As a member of the University Young Democrats, I was a cog in the Burton Machine during my college years in Berkeley. One race I worked on was the election of Cong. Jack Shelley to be Mayor of San Francisco in order to open up his Congressional seat to Phil Burton. When Phil was elected to Congress in 1964, his Assembly seat was taken by brother John.

To elect like-minded people and put them into his debt, Phil Burton became an expert on redistricting (before computers). In the 1960s he influenced the drawing of Assembly District lines to create a seat for Willie Brown, who was elected in 1964. He would become Speaker of the Assembly in 1980 and Mayor of S.F. in 1996. After the 1980 Census, Phil once again drew lines to maximize the number of Democrats as well as to help those who voted his way. However, he didn’t attend to his own health. Phil Burton died on April 10, 1983.

The Burton Machine didn’t die. It was taken over by John Burton and Willie Brown. As they acquired political power, patronage became one of their tools. It’s well known that in 1994 Willie Brown appointed his steady date, Kamala Harris, to two state Boards that paid very well. In 1998, Brown no doubt recommended her to S.F. District Attorney Terence Hallinan, who was looking to hire both women and minorities. Kayo, as he was known, came from a large, well-known, leftist family whose patriarch, Vince Hallinan, had run for President on the Progressive Party ticket in 1952. Kayo was arrested in some of the same the Bay Area Civil Rights demonstrations that I was arrested in during 1964. These resulted in his being denied admission to the California Bar after he graduated from Hastings Law School. The California Supreme Court reversed that decision. If it hadn’t, he would never have become a D.A.

Phil’s wife Sala replaced him in Congress, in a classic widow’s succession. They had met at a YD convention. As Sala lay dying in 1987, she asked Nancy Pelosi to take the seat. Pelosi had grown up in a major political family in Baltimore but had moved with her husband to his home town of San Francisco in 1969. While raising five children she became active in the Democratic Party, becoming particularly notable for her skill at fund raising. As such, she provided a lot of "gas" for the Burton Machine. The Burton and Pelosi couples became good friends.

When Pelosi moved to S.F. there was a vibrant feminist movement. During the 1970s and 1980s the movement expanded into all facets of American life and was much in the news. Within the Democratic Party women pushed for equal representation in all party bodies, and were largely successful. As party leaders looked for women to appoint or support for elective office, Pelosi was available and visible. She was a woman whom men felt comfortable with and she was first and foremost a loyal Democrat. There were 14 candidates in the 1987 special election. Although Pelosi was seen by many as "establishment," feminists still rallied behind her. She won, with the gay/socialist candidate coming in a close second.

Throughout the late 20th Century, women were making great strides into politics. In 1984, Pelosi chaired the host committee when the Democratic National Convention met in San Francisco, where Geraldine Ferraro (D. NY) was the first woman to be nominated for Vice President by a major party. Dianne Feinstein was Mayor of San Francisco for ten years before being elected to the U.S. Senate in 1992. She was joined by Barbara Boxer, who was also a product of the Burton Machine. Boxer was succeeded in 2017 by Kamala Harris.

By the time Kamala Harris ran for Attorney General of California in 2010 California voters were comfortable with women in positions of power. They were proud of Nancy Pelosi as she became the first woman to move up the House hierarchy, returning her to Congress with over three-quarters of the vote every two years. She broke the last glass ceiling when she was elected Speaker in 2007. Acknowledging her origins, Pelosi keeps a small statue of Phil Burton on a table in her office. While Kamala Harris gets a lower percentage of the vote than Pelosi, she never lost an election, not even her first one.

If Joe Biden is inaugurated as President in January, the people first and second in line for succession will both be progeny of the Burton machine and both be women.

Jo is watching the convention online in Brooklyn, NY. She wishes she was in Milwaukee, but we all know why she isn’t. She would like to thank Jerry Fishkin, Lara Levison and Jack Radey for research assistance in preparing this article.

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Jo Freeman Writes: The Political Parentage of Kamala Harris

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