During a 2017 television appearance, then-Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), eyeing a long-shot bid for the Democratic presidential nomination three years on, declared, “Everybody needs to be woke.” In his three serious runs at the White House, former President Donald Trump has campaigned as an anti-woke, tough-on-crime candidate. At a Sept. 29 rally, for instance, the Republican presidential nominee called for “one really violent day” of policing to restore order. And that’s about par for the course.
So, Harris, the current vice president and Democratic presidential nominee, thus might be expected to be more sympathetic to civil assets forfeiture reforms than GOP nominee Trump. This loophole in American law allows police to seize money or property on suspicion of criminal activity. These takings often help prop up local law enforcement budgets. Republican-leaning police unions usually lobby against reforms.
Neither major party presidential candidate is currently talking about this issue or even acknowledging it on their websites. A Washington Examiner search of both donaldjtrump.com and kamalaharris.com returned zero results.
Under the heading of “Protect Civil Rights and Freedoms,” Harris’s campaign website affirms “voting right protections” including the expansion of mail-in and early voting, more money for anti-discrimination enforcement, and further “protections for LGBTQI+ Americans.”
No mention is made of those who have their money or property seized, who are never charged with a crime but still have to sue law enforcement to recover their things.
Her complicated history may have something to do with that silence. Before Harris was a progressive senator — in 2019, GovTrack ranked her as the leftmost member of that body — she was the attorney general of California and, before that, the district attorney of San Francisco.
Steven Greenhut, an R Street Institute scholar, is a close observer of California politics. He said Harris was “viewed as being very pro-law enforcement” as state attorney general.
In her official capacity, “She backed expanded asset forfeiture,” Greenhut said in an interview. “Where police confiscate property even if the owner wasn’t convicted of a crime.”
At the same time, Trump looks like a villain to many would-be civil assets reformers. In 2017, as president, he said of a Texas lawmaker who wanted to reform civil asset forfeiture, “‘We’ll destroy his career.’”
The American Civil Liberties Union, which reported the remark at the time, then asked if Trump would “also threaten the careers of federal legislators who speak out against and try to reform this un-American practice?” The ACLU also pointed out that many of those advocates are “members of the Republican Party” in good standing.
At the federal level, the Fifth Amendment Integrity Restoration Act of 2023 is kicking around in the House of Representatives. It may not pass in the waning days of this Congress but it has so much bipartisan support that it was reported out of the House Committee on the Judiciary by a 26-0 vote.
In this, the representatives are siding with a solid majority of citizens of all parties. When polled on the matter, people overwhelmingly reject civil assets forfeiture in its current form.
The bill would change the evidentiary standard for forfeiture from “preponderance of the evidence to clear and convincing evidence.” It would also require that “forfeiture proceeds … be deposited into the general fund of the Treasury instead of the Department of Justice Assets Forfeiture Fund,” which would effectively end this law enforcement cash cow at the federal level.
Civil assets forfeiture reform is a matter that the next occupant of the White House likely will have to navigate. How might a President Harris or Trump move on it?
With Harris, it’s hard to know because of her constant reinvention. On many issues, from immigration to taxation to energy use, she has been running away from her record as a progressive senator and a tiebreaking vice president and touting her bona fides as a former prosecutor.
If the bill were to reach her desk, the bad PR associated with a veto would probably be enough to see it enacted into law anyway. However, plenty can be done behind the scenes to make sure legislation does not reach the president’s desk.
Of the “destroy his career” comment, NPR reported that Trump was joking, probably. At a White House event, Sheriff Harold Eavenson of Rockwall County, Texas, told Trump about a state senator who was trying to reform the law.
“I told him that the cartel would build a monument to him in Mexico if he could get that legislation,” Eavenson said. And that exaggerated comment likely led to another.
“Who is the state senator? Want to give his name? We’ll destroy his career,” Trump deadpanned, to laughter.
As president, Trump’s approach to law enforcement matters was more complicated than his often intemperate rhetoric suggested. He shut down multiple attempts by his Justice Department to crack down on marijuana, for instance.
But the real surprise came when, at the urging of then-power couple Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, Trump threw his support behind a criminal justice reform bill, the First Step Act. He did so at a key moment to ensure its passage, and some evidence signals that the bill has been a success.
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“Among the nearly 30,000 individuals whose release has been expedited by the First Step Act, nearly nine in every 10 have not been rearrested or reincarcerated,” the Sentencing Project reported in an August 2023 study. “This 12% recidivism rate lies in stark contrast to the more typical 45% recidivism rate among people released from federal prison.”
Trump also has extensive experience with what he views as unjust prosecutions for the past several years. It’s the kind of experience that could affect one’s thinking inside the Oval Office.
Jeremy Lott is the author of The Warm Bucket Brigade: The Story of the American Vice Presidency.
