Presidential candidate and Vice President Kamala Harris is allegedly close to a Democrat who has tried to make possession of child pornography a non-felony, the Daily Caller reported Thursday. That fellow Democrat is Mark Leno, a politician who served in the California State Senate until November 2016 and was known to Harris as a “dear friend.”

Leno wrote legislation that would have allowed pedophiles to possess up to 99 “items” of child porn without being charged with a felony, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said in 2006. A compact disc containing 1,000 pornographic images would have been deemed ONE item, the Caller noted, citing analysis from McCarthy.

When the legislation was proposed, McCarthy was sitting as the California Assembly Republican leader and said Bill 50 as it was first conceived would have provided pedophiles with some legal room to satiate their desire to view child porn without being arrested and charged with a felony. 

Leno’s legislation was not embraced even by his fellow Democrats. The Caller noted that Democratic political analyst Pat Caddell told the Los Angeles Daily News: “What the Democrats did on AB 50 was insane, insane—100 exemptions for child porn? They had to figure out this was not good? If this seeps into voters’ minds, my God.'”

The mainstream media also balked, with the Los Angeles Daily News insisting: “Early on, AB 50 was filled with loopholes that would make your skin crawl. For instance, Leno provided an ‘exemption’ from felony charges if a suspect was caught with less than 100 pieces of child pornography. In a creepy all-time low, Assembly Democrats voted for Leno’s plan to go soft on child porn.”

Leno and Harris have remained close for over two decades as social media posts and archived news stories attest. He may have shared an election night dinner in 2003 with Harris.

“On election night, Matthew and Kamala and I believe [then state assembly member] Mark Leno and a couple of other people went to dinner, and Kamala was like, ‘Come to dinner,’ and I’m like, ‘No, I’m going to sit here with Shyamala [and her friend], and we’re going to get the [election results], we’re going to hang out,’” an interview published in KQED states.

Leno left politics in 2016 as a state senator, prompting Harris to laud his “committed service” to “secure a better future for California’s most vulnerable children.” She thanked him for his “incredible leadership.” Earlier that year, Harris had tweeted about an LGBT Caucus event and how she was “proud to stand” with Leno.

In 2018, Leno tweeted out a photo of him and Harris, saying it was “Nice to catch up with my great supporter and dear friend of two decades @KamalaHarris at tonight’s Labor Council COPE Dinner!”