California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed a law Thursday to reverse a policy that Kamala Harris championed to threaten the parents of truant schoolchildren when she was District Attorney of San Francisco and California Attorney General.
As Breitbart News has noted:
Kamala Harris prosecuted the parents of truant children as District Attorney of San Francisco and California Attorney General in a dubious effort to improve attendance that disproportionately hurt people of color in her state.
Harris tried to walk back her support for prosecuting truancy when she last ran for president in 2019. She even falsely claimed that no one had been jailed as a result of her policy, when in fact parents had been prosecuted and jailed.
As former Breitbart News White House correspondent Charlie Spiering wrote in his book on Harris, Amateur Hour: Kamala Harris in the White House, Harris was lenient toward cop killers, murderers, and gun offenders, and botched a thousand drug cases tainted by faulty evidence, but she was tough on parents of truant children. She even “made a public show of using her authority to strike fear into the hearts of public-school-attending families,” Spiering recalled.
The issue came up in 2019, when National Public Radio noted that Harris’s program hurt black and Latino parents.
Newsom signed SB 691, which notes:
Existing law requires a school district, upon a pupil’s initial classification as a truant, to notify the pupil’s parent or guardian of specified information, including, among other information, that the pupil and parent or guardian of the pupil may be subject to prosecution, as specified, and that it is recommended that the parent or guardian accompany the pupil to school and attend classes with the pupil for one day.
This bill, commencing July 1, 2025, would remove those specific pieces of information from that notification and would require that notification to include additional information, including, among other information, that mental health and supportive services may be available to the pupil and the family and that school personnel are available to meet with the pupil and family to develop strategies to support the pupil’s attendance at school.
The San Francisco Chronicle noted:
As San Francisco district attorney, Harris prosecuted some parents as part of her efforts to reduce truancy.
…
As attorney general, she championed a proposal that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law in 2010 that allowed parents of chronically truant students to be charged with misdemeanors and sentenced to up to a year in jail.
Harris later expressed regret for the policy. She — and the Chronicle — say she was not personally responsible for jailing parents, even though that was clearly the letter of the law that she promoted and enthusiastically implemented.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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