Aides say Harris has already initiated her resignation process, having notified California Governor Gavin Newsom of her intention and sent formal indications that she would resign on Monday. Harris will not deliver a farewell speech to the Senate floor due to the schedule.
Harris won his seat in November 2016 and was sworn in in January 2017. At the time, Harris was California’s attorney general.
The new vice president spoke to Padilla before taking office, according to a person familiar with the discussion.
Harris has made history throughout her career, becoming the first black woman in California to serve as a senator.
In her victory speech in November, she acknowledged the tough battle that women faced to exercise their civic rights and enter the high echelon of American politics, waving to women who came before her as former MP Shirley Chisholm and the girls who will come after her.
“Although I may be the first woman in this office, I will not be the last,” said Harris. “Because every little girl who is watching tonight sees that this is a country of possibilities.”
Harris will now preside over the same chamber from which he is stepping down, becoming president of the Senate.
With double Democratic victories in two Georgia Senate electoral rounds and a highly polarized Congress, Harris will have the power to push any legislation, court nominations and cabinet nominations languishing on party lines over the limit and receive credit for helping to pass. government priorities. As president of the Senate, she will have the casting vote.
But Harris’ advisers say they hope that Harris doesn’t have to break many ties.
“We believe that the issues that Congress will have to address are important bipartisan issues for the American people,” said an aide.
In a press call with reporters announcing the resignation, Harris’ advisers pointed to the first time she worked on Capitol Hill in 1984. She interned for California Senator Alan Cranston during her second year of college at Howard University, a university historically black.
“I loved going to work – it felt like the epicenter of the move, even as an intern sorting mail,” wrote Harris in a tweet from his Senate account in January last year. “Now I work in the same Senate office where I interned.”
Call advisors outlined what they considered Harris’ legislative victories, including the introduction of his Maternal CARE Act, the first Senate bill to specifically address racial disparities in maternal mortality, according to a newsletter, as well as several efforts bipartisans like the anti-lynching act co-sponsored by Democratic Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey and Republican Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, along with his electoral security bill with Republican Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma.
When asked who she was thinking about, Harris said several times about his late mother, Shyamala Gopalan.
CNN’s Dan Merica and Eric Bradner contributed to this report.