California politician Willie Brown downplayed his past relationship with Kamala Harris, now a Democratic senator for California, as she launched her presidential campaign.
The 84-year-old former Mayor of San Francisco also claimed a role in boosting Harris’ political career in a piece published in the San Francisco Chronicle over the weekend titled, “Sure, I dated Kamala Harris. So what?”
“Yes, we dated,” Brown wrote in the piece. “Yes, I may have influenced her career by appointing her to two state commissions when I was Assembly speaker. And I certainly helped with her first race for district attorney in San Francisco.”
Brown engaged in an extramarital affair with Harris when she was a 30-year-old prosecutor and he was in his 60s and serving as speaker of the California Assembly.
In 2003, the San Francisco Weekly reported that Brown had appointed Harris to two highly paid patronage positions in California’s state government and also appointed her to the California Medical Assistance Commission, where she attended two meetings a month for a $150,000 salary, in inflation-adjusted terms.
After their relationship ended, Brown continued to boost Harris’ career by supporting her run for district attorney and later clearing the field for Harris to become a U.S. senator when he called on former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to stay out of the Senate race.
Harris, 54, launched her 2020 Democratic bid for president last week and is one of the more high-profile lawmakers to join the race, which is expected to be crowded.
Brown said in his piece that he helped multiple lawmakers’ careers, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.; Gov. Gavin Newsom; Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.; among others.
“The difference is that Harris is the only one who, after I helped her, sent word that I would be indicted if I ‘so much as jaywalked’ while she was D.A.,” Brown wrote. “That’s politics for ya.”
