Vice presidential hopeful Sen. Kamala Harris on Tuesday applauded Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s decision to slash police funding by $150 million but stopped short of saying she backed the “defund the police” movement.
“I support investing in communities so that they become more healthy and therefore more safe,” Harris said in an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “I applaud Mayor Garcetti for doing what he’s done.”
Harris said the movement posed legitimate questions about police budgets in the wake of George Floyd’s death at the hands of a white Minneapolis cop who knelt on his neck for over 8 minutes.
“Right now, what we’re seeing in America is many cities spend over one-third of their entire city budget on policing but meanwhile we’ve been defunding public schools for years in America,” the California lawmaker continued.
Garcetti last week said he would cut the city’s police budget by up to $150 million to help fund $250 million for youth jobs and health initiatives.
The Democratic Party is split over the political movement which has emerged overnight and is now dominating the 2020 race — with President Trump claiming Democrats want to abolish police departments entirely.
Calls to defund the police ask local governments to reduce their public spending on police and instead invest that money on improving the standard of living in marginalized communities.
“We’ve got to reexamine what we’re doing with American taxpayer dollars and ask the question, are we getting the right return on our investment? Are we actually creating healthy and safe communities?” Harris asked.
“That’s a legitimate conversation and it requires a really critical evaluation.”
The senator, who is considered to be on Joe Biden’s shortlist for potential running mates, previously served as California’s attorney general from 2011 to 2017.
Her own record as California’s top prosecutor came under scrutiny when she mounted her own White House bid last year, with critics saying she was not as progressive as she claimed.