Political positions of Kamala Harris  The political positions of Kamala Harris are reflected by her United States Senate voting record, public speeches, and interviews. Kamala Harris is a Democratic senator from California who has served since 2017. Harris opposed California's ban on affirmative action. She asked the Supreme Court to "reaffirm its decision that public colleges and universities may consider race as one factor in admissions decisions." Harris filed legal papers in the Supreme Court case supporting race as an admissions factor at the University of Texas. She also filed papers supporting affirmative action in a different Supreme Court case involving the University of Michigan. Harris is opposed to the death penalty, but has said that she would review each case individually. In July 2019, Attorney General Barr announced the federal government's resumption of capital punishment after nearly 20 years without an execution of a federal inmate. Harris, having long been opposed to the death penalty since her days as the district attorney of San Francisco, criticized the move as "misguided," "immoral," and "a gross misuse of taxpayer dollars." Harris cosponsored a bill banning the death penalty. In December 2018, Harris voted for the First Step Act, legislation aimed at reducing recidivism rates among federal prisoners through expanding job training and other programs in addition to forming an expansion of early-release programs and modifications on sentencing laws such as mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders, "to more equitably punish drug offenders." In March 2020, Harris was one of fifteen senators to sign a letter to Federal Bureau of Prisons, GEO Group, CoreCivic, and Management and Training Corporation requesting information on their strategy to address coronavirus, asserting that it was "critical that [you] have a plan to help prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus to incarcerated individuals and correctional staff, along with their families and loved ones, and provide treatment to incarcerated individuals and staff who become infected." Harris did not initially support the legalization of recreational marijuana, but later moved to support legalization. In 2010, while campaigning for Attorney General of California, she opposed Proposition 19, the first failed attempt to legalize recreational marijuana in California, on the grounds that selling drugs harms communities. In 2015, she called for an end on the federal prohibition of medical marijuana. In April 2018, following reports that the Justice Department was blocking the Drug Enforcement Administration from taking action on over two dozen requests to grow marijuana for use in research, Harris and Republican Orrin Hatch sent a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions on the necessity of marijuana research "for evidence-based decision making" and "to resolve critical questions of public health and safety, such as learning the impacts of marijuana on developing brains and formulating methods to test marijuana impairment in drivers."