SAN FRANCISCO -- San Francisco District Attorney Kamala D. Harris filed papers Wednesday to run for California Attorney General in the June 2010 primary election.

Harris, 44, contends that she brings the right kind of approach and experience at the right time to become the Golden State's chief law enforcement officer.

"I've spent my entire professional life in the trenches as a courtroom prosecutor. I started my career out of law school as a prosecutor in the Alameda DA's Office and I can tell you from the frontlines, we need tough new ideas for strengthening our criminal justice system in California.

"I will fight for all Californians - from distressed homeowners to families whose neighborhoods are under siege. In the coming months, I will detail new ideas on how we can fight street gangs, go after subprime lenders and others responsible for the current financial crisis, and fundamentally reform our prison system. We have to shut the revolving door that simply recycles criminals in and out of our neighborhoods," Harris said in a statement.

Harris' announcement was tempered with one, arguably big, caveat: Should current Attorney General Jerry Brown not run for governor in 2010, she would not pursue that office.

Should Harris not run for Attorney General it is believed that she would readily accept a political appointment as perhaps a deputy attorney general with the U.S. Justice Department. Harris has been a near tireless supporter of President-elect Barack Obama and is believed to be a short list of people Obama is considering for appointments to the federal department.

But assuming Harris does stay and run for the state post, observers say she may well have difficulty selling the San Francisco's "sanctuary city" immigration policy and her adamant anti-death penalty position to conservative suburban and rural Californians.

Harris took considerable heat from the San Francisco Police Officers Association when she refused to seek the death penalty of a suspect who gunned down Officer Isaac Espinosa in the city's Bay View section in April 2004.

In December 2003, Harris was elected as the first woman District Attorney in San Francisco's history, and as the first African American woman in California to hold the office. She was overwhelmingly reelected to a second term in November 2007.

Harris was born in Oakland, California and raised with her sister Maya, in the East Bay by their mother Dr. Shyamala Gopalan, a breast cancer specialist. After attending public schools, her strong commitment to justice and public service led her to Howard University, America's oldest historically black university, and then to the University of California, Hastings College of the Law.