Vice President Kamala Harris would not be facing attacks she used sexual relationships to advance her career as she begins her 2024 presidential campaign if it were not for her race and political beliefs, according to an Alabama state representative.

If Harris, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee who is Black and South Asian, were a white Republican, she would not be subject to those attacks, said Rep. Juandalynn Givan, D-Birmingham.

In suggesting that Harris is being subject to a double standard, Givan invoked the name of Alabama’s junior U.S. senator.

“You have fools out there that think this woman got to where she is by laying on her back,” Givan told Dothan television station WTVY. “Did Katie Britt lay on hers to get to the (U.S.) Senate?”

Givan told AL.com she was not making any allegations against Britt, who is a white woman, instead suggesting that Britt has not had to deal with the same attacks lodged against Harris.

“If you want to attack her on her policy, if you want to attack her on all of those things dealing with her job performance, that’s a whole different thing,” Givan said, “but what you’re not going to do as white Republican Alabamians or Americans is say that she got to where she is by laying on her back, that she’s a DEI, that she’s a ho and that she’s all these other things all into one.”

“I love Katie, I don’t have a problem with Katie,” Givan said, “but she doesn’t have to deal with it, and that’s my point.”

Britt’s office did not immediately issue a comment on Givan’s statement.

As Democrats rallied around Harris as the presumptive nominee after President Joe Biden withdrew from the presidential race, the vice president faced attacks suggesting that her relationships with powerful men helped further her political career.

While the attacks claimed that Harris dated then-married San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown in the 1990s, Brown was actually separated from his wife at the time of the relationship, Reuters reported.

Givan defended Harris, saying the former U.S. senator and California attorney general’s career is built on merit.

She noted that U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., called on House members to refrain from attacking Harris’ race or gender.

“This is not personal with regard to Kamala Harris,” Johnson told reporters, according to the Associated Press, “and her ethnicity or her gender have nothing to do with this whatsoever.”

Addressing Harris’ critics, Givan said, “I ask the question: do you even have a GED? Do you have a high school diploma? Do you have a baccalaureate? Do you have a Masters? And certainly, do u have a doctorate of jurisprudence?”

“So what makes her a DEI? She’s a whole lot of things, but to say she got to where she is by laying on her back … my question is. ‘How did you get to where you got? Because she’s destined, she’s extraordinary, she’s imperial – DEI. She is deliciously gorgeous, exceptional and intriguing – DEI.”