From the New York Times

By SHAILA DEWAN

Published: February 13, 2012

LOS ANGELES — Kamala D. Harris, the attorney general of California, could have derailed a nationwide settlement with big banks over home foreclosure abuses when she walked out of talks last September.

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Sandy Huffaker for The New York Times

Kamala D. Harris, the attorney general of California, is a potential candidate for governor.

Last week, though, she emerged with a prize and a little vindication. Ms. Harris, already a rising Democratic star and a potential candidate for governor, announced that California would receive by far the largest share of the benefits in the deal, which is expected to climb beyond the $26 billion in the initial announcement.

Along the way, Ms. Harris charted a lonely course, keeping her distance from potential allies and angering some of her peers in other states, who saw her as grandstanding. On one side, Ms. Harris, a close Obama ally, faced increasing pressure from the administration to return to the negotiating table. On the other, liberal groups mounted a concerted push to get her to wring more from the banks.

But Ms. Harris wagered that holding out until the end in the settlement talks would give her the most leverage. In the end, she walked away with far more than California was slated to receive in the early days of the talks and a little more than was on the table as recently as January. Beaming into the cameras last Thursday, she said California homeowners were guaranteed $12 billion in debt reduction, while most other states received only promises.

Not only did she get the guarantee, she said, but the “California commitment” includes special penalties if the banks do not fulfill their part of the deal. Furthermore, she maintains the right to pursue claims on behalf of the state’s pension fund.

Critics said that her theatrics won her little more than California would have received anyway, because the state has the greatest number of troubled home loans, and that her threats to hold banks accountable have been just that, while officials in several other states have filed lawsuits.

Michael Hiltzik, a business columnist for The Los Angeles Times, called the overall settlement “a parade of rosy self-congratulation,” adding, “I believe the technical term for all this is ‘big whoop.’ ”

Still, the deal is a victory for a woman who is no stranger to winning, in court or in politics. A longtime prosecutor who exudes confidence and charisma, in 2003, she waged a successful campaign to become the San Francisco district attorney, defeating the incumbent, Terence Hallinan, a reliable liberal and her former boss. Last year, she defeated the district attorney of Los Angeles, her Republican opponent for attorney general, in a race so close that he initially declared victory. She became the first woman and the first African-American attorney general of California.

“Afterwards she asked me, ‘Did you know everyone thought we were going to lose?’ ” said Debbie Mesloh, her former spokeswoman.

Ms. Harris, 47, possessed an aura of glamour even when she entered the public eye in the mid-1990s, as a young prosecutor, a trustee of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the girlfriend of Willie Brown, soon to be mayor of San Francisco, on whom she was said to convey an air of gravitas. In part because of her heritage — she is the daughter of an Indian-American mother and a Jamaican-American father — she is often compared to President Obama.

She is the kind of person who turns heads when she enters a room. She made the “power list” in O magazine and confided, in a Harper’s Bazaar profile last year, her penchant for Manolo Blahnik shoes and Chanel handbags.

But when she talks about the many suffering homeowners she has met, she is perfectly serious. California has more than two million of the 11 million Americans who owe more on their mortgage than their home is worth. It has seven of the 10 cities with the highest rate of foreclosure, and the bulk of the loans made by Countrywide, considered among the most destructive.