ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
It was the year 2000, and Louise Renne was looking for a tough prosecutor. Renne was San Francisco's city attorney, the first woman to hold that job, and she needed someone to run the family and children's services division.
LOUISE RENNE: Whether it's child abuse, foster care, adoption, any issue in which the city might be involved having to do with the welfare of a child or a family.
SHAPIRO: The job demanded grit and also empathy.
RENNE: So it was a balancing act, but I thought Kamala had those traits.
SHAPIRO: The young lawyer she hired named Kamala Harris is now a Democratic presidential candidate with the shortest campaign in modern U.S. history. So all week, we are talking with people about parts of Harris' life before she came to Washington as a senator in a series called I Knew Her When. When Harris worked for Louise Renne, lots of the cases in family court involved suffering. So on the rare day when there was joy on the docket, Renne says Harris went all in.
RENNE: She came into my office with a armful of teddy bears, and she said, come on, Louise, it's adoption day, and we're going to go over and give teddy bears to the children and their families as a remembrance of this day. And it certainly hadn't been anything that had been done in the past, but it certainly was appropriate for the moment. And so I thought that was sort of out-of-the-box look at what would be a very meaningful day in the life of the child and the family that were making the adoption.
SHAPIRO: Yeah. I imagine a joyful day like that was probably the exception, that the majority of cases you handled were a little more difficult, a little more painful. Can you talk about how she dealt with that?
RENNE: I know Kamala is a very serious person. Is she going to fall apart because of the situations that she was involved in? The answer to that is a firm no. And that is one of the things I was looking for - somebody who would be tough enough to deal with the sometimes dreadful circumstances that we were dealing with and yet at the same time compassionate enough to be kind when that was called for.
SHAPIRO: Did she ever tell you why she wanted to get involved in children and family court?
RENNE: I know Kamala has strong views about family and taking care of people. I think that's probably one of the reasons why she became a prosecutor. But the other thing is, I mean, Kamala has always been very close to her family. She was very close to her mother, whom I had met - her mother was a brilliant scientist - very close to her sister and her sister's family, including her niece. And I know later on - I think it was when she became attorney general - she was criticized by some for being tough on parents where a child had been truant for an undue length of time not going to school.
SHAPIRO: Right. This was a policy of prosecuting parents for children's absence from school. Yeah.
RENNE: Right. Right. And I know some people have criticized her for that. I do not criticize her for that because family, education, people doing well are very important to Kamala. And I think that was reflected in not only the work that she did in our office, but later on when she was a prosecutor and an AG.
SHAPIRO: I should say that there have been parents who were prosecuted under that program who have come forward and said that it really affected their lives negatively.
RENNE: I mean, I have no doubt it did affect parents negatively. I will just say I all my life have worked with at-risk families. And I can tell you, when children do not go to school, it's the child that's affected negatively. That's a lifetime of negativity.
SHAPIRO: What memories from her time as your staffer stick with you now that you see her campaigning for the highest office in the land?
RENNE: Well, I always knew that Kamala would be successful. I remember very clearly when she came and said, let's have lunch, and we did, and she said, what do you think about my running for San Francisco district attorney? And I said, go for it. And she did. She not only was the first woman district attorney but the first woman attorney general.
SHAPIRO: Did you have any specific advice for her as a first? - you having been a first yourself and her running for an office that had never been held by someone who looked quite like her.
RENNE: I'm a lucky person. Dianne Feinstein was a very close friend of mine - first woman mayor, first woman U.S. senator from California. Nancy Pelosi is somebody I know well - another first. So I'm not sure that the issue of being a first was - to make a bad pun - first and foremost in my mind. The real question was, you know, can you win? And is it worth the battle? And I thought, yes, it was worth the battle, and yes, she could win.
SHAPIRO: It's interesting. You paint a picture of this political ecosystem that was full of very powerful women...
RENNE: Yes.
SHAPIRO: ...Which is not the case for American politics all over the country.
RENNE: Yes. I've been asked that question about San Francisco because we're frequently painted as, you know, these people that are literally out of our minds. That is so wrong. If you take a look at whether it was Dianne Feinstein or Nancy Pelosi today or Kamala Harris or Barbara Boxer - very, very practical, practical women. These are substantive, policy-driven, public-spirited, practical people.
SHAPIRO: Well, it's so good to hear your perspective. Thank you for talking with us.
RENNE: Well, thank you very much.
SHAPIRO: Louise Renne is former San Francisco city attorney, and she was Kamala Harris' boss when Harris served as head of the office's division on children and families.
And tomorrow, our series I Knew Her When concludes with a woman who was sorority sisters with Kamala Harris. She describes their college days at Howard University.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: We were all very highly focused. We actually dressed up to go to school. Kamala carried a briefcase, and that was not deemed to be an odd thing.
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