‘A quiet force’: Kamala Harris returns home after making history in Washington

WASHINGTON – Former US Vice-President Kamala Harris left Washington on Jan 20 the way she entered her role on the same day five years ago: making history.

After President Donald Trump’s inauguration, Ms Harris headed to Joint Base Andrews to take her last official flight home to California, supported by an all-female US Air Force crew – the first time such a crew has operated a C-32 aircraft for the military branch, according to an aide.

It was a fitting end for a barrier-breaking vice-president who rarely presented herself as such, a subtle nod to her historic ascendancy to the second-highest office in the nation.

When she arrived in California, Ms Harris visited a fire station to thank firefighters who have been on the front lines of the wildfires that have torn through Los Angeles, putting even her own home in danger. She will also join the staff of the World Central Kitchen charity in distributing food to communities affected by the blazes.

Ms Harris’ first acts as a nonelected official for the first time in decades could be indicative of what comes next.

She has not directly addressed her loss to Mr Trump nor publicly spoken about her plans after leaving office.

“I’ll keep you posted,” she said when asked last week, after she signed her name – the first woman’s – to the ceremonial desk signed by vice presidents since 1940.

A commitment to duty and democracy defined her last weeks in office. Ms Harris certified the election that she lost, drawing a stark contrast to four years ago, when her opponent incited a violent mob to derail the process when she took office.

Instead of a trip to several countries, which she cancelled to tend to the wildfire response, she made a series of calls to world leaders. And on Jan 20, she fulfilled her obligations to welcome the new administration to Washington, even after a bitter campaign in which the new administration attacked her personally, often with tinges of racism and sexism.

“Clearly, she was held to a standard that no other vice president of a country was held to, and she rose to the occasion,” said Ms LaTosha Brown, the co-founder of the voting rights group Black Voters Matter. “And she left that office with her character intact.”

During her first two years, Ms Harris had a number of stumbles. She struggled to articulate policy positions on issues like immigration and was sidelined in the administration on big decisions. Her office was rife with dysfunction.

But she emerged as a crucial partner for Mr Joe Biden, which was demonstrated when he handed her his candidacy – and his legacy – when he dropped out of the presidential race in July.

Before then, Ms Harris played an integral role in some of Mr Biden’s other legacy-defining decisions. She pushed him to express more sympathy for Palestinians in the Israel-Hamas war and to be more aggressive in communicating the administration’s accomplishments.

She took on the task of galvanising the country around generational issues like reproductive rights when he could not, and she played a role in his recent record-breaking clemency actions for people serving long prison terms for nonviolent drug offences.

She also played a pivotal role in Mr Biden’s nomination of the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court.

While Ms Harris’ portfolio was seen as something of a quagmire, she became the chief domestic policy spokesperson for the administration. Mr Biden had assigned her the “root causes” of migration, which inexplicably branded her the “border czar” responsible for the migrant crisis. But she quickly carved out a role for herself by taking on some of the country’s intractable issues.

Ms Harris championed policies such as the child tax credit, removing the burdens of medical debt and bolstering worker’s rights. She also took on the issues of gun violence prevention, leading the White House’s first federal office dedicated to the cause, climate change, and US policy advances on artificial intelligence.

“It was strange when people would say, ‘I don’t know what she was doing,” said Mr Joel K. Goldstein, a longtime expert on the vice-presidency at St. Louis University School of Law. “If you were covering her, or you Googled her, you would see – it was all there. And the fact that she was taking on those international assignments showed you that Biden valued her enough to give her significant platforms.”

Ms Harris’ role in shaping foreign policy received less recognition, including her presence on the world stage.

The administration looked to her to deliver some of its most consequential messages to the world, such as warning at the Munich conference in 2022 that Russia was preparing to invade Ukraine and announcing the US determination that Russia had committed crimes against humanity in Ukraine at the same conference in 2023.

Ms Harris also used her high-profile appearance in Selma, Alabama, in 2024 to call on Israel to increase the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza and for a ceasefire.

Azali Fortier, a 17-year-old sophomore at Spelman College who introduced Ms Harris in Selma and locked arms with her as they walked over the Edmund Pettus Bridge, said on Jan 20 that Ms Harris had instilled a sense of “militancy” in young people. Watching her leave the White House after a hard-fought campaign, in which she displayed “grace and integrity,” taught a valuable lesson, Fortier said.

“Her leaving reminds us that we are to be strong in times like this, but we should never forget where we came from, and we should keep that in mind when we’re looking to where we go next,” Fortier said. “She let us know what it was – that this is the world that we have to be prepared to fight to live in, not just live in.” NYTIMES