On April 24, 2007, Kamala Harris testified before Congress in support of the John R. Justice Prosecutors and Defenders Incentive Act of 2007. The bill, which was introduced that year but never passed the upper chamber, would have created a student loan repayment program for state and local prosecutors, and Harris, then the district attorney of San Francisco, argued it would draw top legal talent to offices like hers. ...

The statement was simple and pragmatic. But Harris wasn’t the first person to make it.

Virtually her entire testimony about the bill was taken from that of another district attorney, Paul Logli of Winnebago County, Illinois, who had testified in support of the legislation two months earlier before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Both statements cite the same surveys, use the same language, and make the same points in the same order, with a paragraph added here or there. They even contain the same typos, such as missing punctuation or mistaken plurals.