Days after revelations that California Highway Patrol officers have been escorting former Vice President Kamala Harris on her national book tour at taxpayer expense, three of her scheduled appearances in her home state have abruptly been scrapped.
The Sacramento, Anaheim, and San Diego stops on Harris 107 Days book tour, billed as A Conversation with Kamala Harris, were listed as canceled on Ticketmaster on Tuesday, according to Western Journal. Ticketmaster attributed the cancellations to a scheduling conflict and indicated that all ticket holders would receive refunds, even as tickets remained on sale for April events in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.
Harris most recent appearance on the tour took place in Oakland on March 3, underscoring that the California cancellations came only after public scrutiny of her security arrangements intensified. At the time of the earlier reporting, KCRA-TV noted that California taxpayers were footing the bill for her security detail wherever she traveled, including out-of-state and even foreign stops.
The outlet reported that dozens of California Highway Patrol officers have been traveling with her for all of the former vice presidents book tour appearances. State officials have refused to disclose how much this protection is costing or how many officers are being deployed, shielding the full financial burden from public view.
Harris had been granted security protection after leaving office, but President Donald Trump canceled that benefit in September, raising further questions about why California taxpayers are now effectively replacing a federal perk. Representatives for Harris have declined to answer inquiries about the state-funded detail, leaving critics to argue that the arrangement looks more like a political favor than a legitimate public-safety necessity.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton has vowed that, if elected, he will end the taxpayer-funded security for Harris, denouncing it as a corrupt freebie. The Kamala Harris book tour is obviously part of her presidential campaign, Hilton explained. Her donors if she has any should be paying for her security, not Californians who already pay the highest taxes in the country for the worst results.
This is yet another example of the Democrat political machine siphoning off taxpayer cash into their bottomless money pit of waste, fraud, and abuse, he continued. We are sick of it. As governor, I will immediately cancel this corrupt Kamala freebie. His comments reflect a broader conservative concern that Democrat officials routinely treat the public treasury as a campaign slush fund, insulated from accountability.
GOP Assemblyman Tom Lackey, a nearly 30-year veteran of the CHP, has said he believes the detail involves multiple officers and acknowledges that Harris faces genuine security risks. Were living in an unstable environment right now, and its really hard to predict circumstances and peoples behavior, and so she deserves that kind of protection, Lackey told KCRA.
At the same time, Lackey insists taxpayers are entitled to transparency and a serious debate over whether this level of protection should continue for a partisan book tour with clear political overtones. All I know is its a lot, it is a significant amount of money, he added. Where the slippery slope starts to show up is the personal gain aspect. Should they be provided at the taxpayers expense? Thats a great question that deserves discussion.
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