How 29-year-old Kamala Harris began an affair with powerful San Francisco politician Willie Brown, then 60 and married, who appointed her to two lucrative positions only to dump her after he was voted first black mayor of the city | 13 Aug 2020 | ...The fling may have fizzled long ago, but in the decades since, Kamala Harris has struggled to shirk her association with California Democrat Willie Brown, whom she has described as "an albatross hanging around my neck." ...As Brown's "new steady," Harris soon found herself rubbing shoulders with many of California's political movers and shakers. As well as gifting his young squeeze a BMW car, the relationship reaped even more tangible benefits when Brown handed Harris two influential positions. "Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, continuing his rush to hand out patronage jobs while he retains his powerful post, has given high-paying appointments to his former law associate and a former Alameda County prosecutor who is Brown's frequent companion," the Los Angeles Times noted in 1994. "Brown, exercising his power even as his speakership seems near an end, named attorney Kamala Harris to the California Medical Assistance Commission...Harris, a former deputy district attorney in Alameda County, was described by several people at the Capitol as Brown's girlfriend." Brown also appointed Harris to the state's Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board, a lucrative position worth a further $97,088 a year, according to the same article. She took a leave of absence from her prosecutor duties to serve in the positions.