Then 30, Harris was dating 60-year-old Willie Brown, at the time the Democratic speaker of the California State Assembly, when he placed her on the California Medical Assistance Commission in 1994. The position paid over $70,000 per year, $120,700 in current money, and Harris served on the board until 1998.
The medical commission met twice a month, and Harris, a United States senator for California since 2017 and now a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, missed about 20% of the meetings each year, according to commission records obtained by the Washington Examiner.
The seven-member board was largely comprised of late-career former state officials who were semi-retired or biding time before retirement. At 30 years old, Harris was the youngest appointee by some three decades.
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Harris, now 54, and Brown, now 85, started dating in the spring of 1994, showing up arm-in-arm at numerous high-profile functions, including Brown’s lavish parties and celebrity galas. He has been separated but not divorced from his wife Blanche Vitero since the 1980s and has maintained a string of girlfriends over the years.
That June of 1994, Harris took a leave of absence from her job as a deputy prosecutor at the district attorney’s office in Alameda County, where she had worked for four years after graduating from law school. Brown appointed Harris to the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board, a position that paid $97,000 annually, which would be $167,000 in 2019. Five months later, Harris resigned from the insurance board, and Brown immediately appointed her to the California Medical Assistance Commission.
Harris had no medical background, according to a copy of her resume that she submitted to Brown at the time. Her experience consisted of four years as a deputy prosecutor, a handful of summer jobs and internships, and a volunteer position at a hospital fundraising group.
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“Both boards are reserved for political payback or occasionally for personal rewards for personal service,” said Brett Granlund, a former California Republican state assemblyman who worked closely with the commission while Harris was on the board. “The boards are considered plumb appointments as they require no work, no policy credentials, and are paid the equivalent of a full-time [state] senator for arriving at a one- to two-hour meeting each month.”
Granlund said the appointment seemed brazen at the time because of the relationship between Harris and Brown. “Screwing the speaker has its rewards,” he said. “Stevie Wonder could have seen through that play.”
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Harris was first described as the “speaker’s new steady” in a column written by the late San Francisco gossip columnist Herb Caen, a close friend of Brown’s, in March 1994. Photos from the time, obtained from Brown’s personal archives in San Francisco, show the couple cozying up and dancing at parties, including Brown’s birthday and his annual fete known as “The Reunion.”
According to Caen’s columns, friends of the couple were hopeful that Harris could convince Brown to finally settle down. To their surprise, the two broke up shortly after Brown was elected mayor of San Francisco.
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The breakup reportedly happened shortly after Brown met 32-year-old San Francisco socialite Carolyn Carpeneti, a woman with whom he would later have a daughter. While the two were dating, Carpeneti was paid $2.33 million for campaign work from a network of nonprofit groups and committees run by Brown and his associates, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
