How Vice President Kamala Harris got started in politics

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Vice President Kamala Harris got her start in politics at age 29, when she was just out of law school, at the Alameda County District Attorney's Office, where she met a 60-year-old kingmaker: California Assembly Speaker Willie Brown — arguably then the state's most powerful politician.

Brown, while estranged from his wife, remained married. However, socially, he and Harris were seen everywhere and never denied being close. Brown appointed Harris to several well-paid state commissions: the state Insurance Commission, the state Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board and later, the California Medical Assistance Commission.

Harris came from a learned household. She was born in Oakland, California, to an Indian-born mother and a Jamaican-born father. Both were professors — one at Berkeley, the other at Stanford. Harris' parents divorced when she was 7. Following her parents' split, she moved to Illinois, then to Quebec, Canada, alongside her sister and mother.

After high school, Harris attended Howard University, where she joined the debate team and claimed to demonstrate "almost every weekend." Later, she attended Hastings College of Law, where, like many of her classmates, she failed her first attempt at the California bar exam, but she passed the second time.

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In 1998, Harris took a job at the San