Former San Francisco Town Lawyer Louise Renne used to be Kamala Harris’ boss when Harris served as head of the workplace’s category on kids and households — a role that demanded each grit and empathy.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
It used to be the presen 2000, and Louise Renne used to be in search of a difficult prosecutor. Renne used to be San Francisco’s town legal professional, the primary lady to accumulation that process, and he or she wanted any person to run the crowd and kids’s products and services category.
LOUISE RENNE: Whether or not it’s kid abuse, foster aid, adoption, any factor during which the town may well be concerned having to do with the welfare of a kid or a crowd.
SHAPIRO: The process demanded grit and likewise empathy.
RENNE: So it used to be a balancing function, however I believed Kamala had the ones characteristics.
SHAPIRO: The younger attorney she rented named Kamala Harris is now a Democratic presidential candidate with the shortest marketing campaign in trendy U.S. historical past. So all era, we’re speaking with folk about portions of Harris’ age sooner than she got here to Washington as a senator in a sequence known as I Knew Her When. When Harris labored for Louise Renne, a variety of the instances in crowd courtroom concerned struggling. So at the uncommon while when there used to be pleasure at the docket, Renne says Harris went all in.
RENNE: She got here into my workplace with a armful of teddy bears, and he or she stated, come on, Louise, it’s adoption while, and we’re committing to travel over and provides teddy bears to the kids and their households as a remembrance of this while. And it without a doubt hadn’t been the rest that have been carried out within the while, however it without a doubt used to be suitable for the presen. And so I believed that used to be form of out-of-the-box have a look at what can be an excessively significant while within the age of the kid and the crowd that had been making the adoption.
SHAPIRO: Yeah. I consider a happy while like that used to be almost definitely the exception, that almost all of instances you treated had been a negligible tougher, a negligible extra painful. Are you able to discuss how she handled that?
RENNE: I do know Kamala is an excessively critical individual. Is she committing to fall aside as a result of the conditions that she used to be concerned with? The solution to that could be a company deny. And that is without doubt one of the issues I used to be in search of – any individual who can be difficult plenty to trade in with the every so often unfortunate instances that we had been coping with and but on the identical age compassionate plenty to be type when that used to be known as for.
SHAPIRO: Did she ever let you know why she sought after to get concerned with kids and crowd courtroom?
RENNE: I do know Kamala has sturdy perspectives about crowd and caring for folk. I feel that’s almost definitely some of the explanation why she changed into a prosecutor. However the alternative factor is, I ruthless, Kamala has at all times been very near to her crowd. She used to be very near to her mom, whom I had met – her mom used to be a magnificent scientist – very near to her sister and her sister’s crowd, together with her niece. And I do know after on – I feel it used to be when she changed into legal professional common – she used to be criticized through some for being difficult on oldsters the place a kid have been truant for an undue area of age now not going to college.
SHAPIRO: Proper. This used to be a coverage of prosecuting oldsters for kids’s absence from faculty. Yeah.
RENNE: Proper. Proper. And I do know some folk have criticized her for that. I don’t criticize her for that as a result of crowd, training, folk doing smartly are very remarkable to Kamala. And I feel that used to be mirrored in now not simplest the paintings that she did in our workplace, however after on when she used to be a prosecutor and an AG.
SHAPIRO: I must say that there were oldsters who had been prosecuted below that program who’ve come ahead and stated that it truly affected their lives negatively.
RENNE: I ruthless, I don’t have any confusion it did have an effect on oldsters negatively. I will be able to simply say I all my age have labored with at-risk households. And I will be able to let you know, when kids don’t travel to college, it’s the kid that’s affected negatively. That’s a life-time of negativity.
SHAPIRO: What recollections from her age as your staffer keep on with you currently that you simply see her campaigning for the best workplace within the land?
RENNE: Smartly, I at all times knew that Kamala would achieve success. I be mindful very obviously when she got here and stated, let’s have lunch, and we did, and he or she stated, what do you take into accounts my operating for San Francisco district legal professional? And I stated, travel for it. And she or he did. She now not simplest used to be the primary lady district legal professional however the first lady legal professional common.
SHAPIRO: Did you may have any particular recommendation for her as a primary? – you having been a primary your self and her operating for an workplace that had by no means been held through any person who appeared rather like her.
RENNE: I’m a fortunate individual. Dianne Feinstein used to be an excessively near good friend of mine – first lady mayor, first lady U.S. senator from California. Nancy Pelosi is any individual I do know smartly – any other first. So I’m now not positive that the problem of being a primary used to be – to put together a unholy pun – at the beginning in my thoughts. The true query used to be, you understand, are you able to win? And is it significance the struggle? And I believed, sure, it used to be significance the struggle, and sure, she may win.
SHAPIRO: It’s attention-grabbing. You paint an image of this political ecosystem that used to be stuffed with very robust ladies…
RENNE: Sure.
SHAPIRO: …Which isn’t the case for American politics far and wide the rustic.
RENNE: Sure. I’ve been requested that query about San Francisco as a result of we’re often painted as, you understand, those folk which are actually out of our minds. This is so improper. In case you check out whether or not it used to be Dianne Feinstein or Nancy Pelosi lately or Kamala Harris or Barbara Boxer – very, very sensible, sensible ladies. Those are substantive, policy-driven, public-spirited, sensible folk.
SHAPIRO: Smartly, it’s so just right to listen to your point of view. Thanks for speaking with us.
RENNE: Smartly, thanks very a lot.
SHAPIRO: Louise Renne is former San Francisco town legal professional, and he or she used to be Kamala Harris’ boss when Harris served as head of the workplace’s category on kids and households.
And the next day, our sequence I Knew Her When concludes with a girl who used to be sorority sisters with Kamala Harris. She describes their school days at Howard College.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: We had been all very extremely targeted. We in reality dressed as much as travel to college. Kamala carried a briefcase, and that used to be now not deemed to be an atypical factor.
(SOUNDBITE OF DAN ROMER’S “COMPROMISE”)
Copyright © 2024 NPR. All rights reserved. Talk over with our web page phrases of usefulness and permissions pages at www.npr.org for additional data.
NPR transcripts are created on a hurry closing date through an NPR contractor. This newsletter will not be in its ultimate method and is also up to date or revised going forward. Accuracy and availability might range. The authoritative report of NPR’s programming is the audio report.
