Kamala Harris began her political career when she was 29 and she started dating the 60 year old Speaker of the State Assembly. Even though Brown married in 1958 and remains married to this very day, they were seen all over San Francisco together and people thought that Brown would divorce his wife and marry Harris, but it was not to be.
Willie Brown began improving Harris’s financial status very quickly, appointing her to the State Unemployment Insurance Appeals board at an annual salary of $114,000 a year. He also named her to the California Medical assistance Board that paid $99,000. Both were part time jobs. She also worked for the county at a salary of $100,000 a year. As a bonus Brown bought her a brand new BMW.
Brown turned her onto his political machine that included the names of all of his donors and his get out the vote contacts. When he ran for mayor, on election night as the news reached him that he won, he was relieved that it was over. But so was the affair. It was never officially announced but most sources say that Brown dumped Harris who then started dating Montel Williams.
The San Francisco Weekly reported on Kamala’s affair with Willie Brown in 2003.
If she can just get out from under this damn Willie Brown thing.
Harris routinely tries to distance herself from her ex-squeeze, whom she hates even talking about. The mere mention of their former liaison makes her shoulders tense, her hands clench, and her eyes narrow.
“I refuse,” she says vehemently, “to design my campaign around criticizing Willie Brown for the sake of appearing to be independent when I have no doubt that I am independent of him — and that he would probably right now express some fright about the fact that he cannot control me.
His career is over; I will be alive and kicking for the next 40 years. I do not owe him a thing.”
She acknowledges that Brown is an “albatross hanging around my neck” and fears that voters who dislike him will ignore her candidacy — even as she dismisses such an act as irrational. “Would it make sense if you are a Martian coming to Earth that the litmus test for public office is where a candidate is in their relationship to Willie Brown?” Harris asks. “Willie Brown is not going to be around. He’s gone — hello people, move on. If there is corruption, it will be prosecuted. It’s a no-brainer, but let’s please move on.”