Kamala mate to break mould -Emhoff to quit law firm, focus on White House

Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris with spouse Doug Emhoff  Source: twitter.com/KamalaHarris

 AP   |   Sacramento, California   |   12.11.20 : In the Biden White House, the First Lady wants to keep her job teaching and the Second Gentleman plans to quit his law firm to support the vice-president’s career.

When it comes to political marriages, we’ve reached a new moment.

Doug Emhoff, the 56-year-old husband of Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris, will leave his private law practice by Inauguration Day to focus on his role at the White House, a spokesperson said Tuesday.

He’s said little so far about how he’ll approach the role and is still working with the transition team on what issues he’ll tackle.

“We’ve been waiting for this sort of gender switch for decades now,” said Kim Nalder, a professor of political science who has focused on women and gender at California State University-Sacramento.

She added, “There is a lot of symbolism from a man stepping back from his high-powered career in order to support his wife’s career.”

Emhoff’s decision to cut ties with DLA Piper also offered an early test of how a Biden administration would avoid potential ethical issues. While Emhoff is not a lobbyist, the firm has a large presence lobbying the federal government on behalf of clients including Comcast, Raytheon and the government of Puerto Rico. He took a leave of absence from the firm in August when Biden chose Harris, a US senator from California, as his running mate.

While Emhoff built a career as a high-profile entertainment lawyer in Southern California, he’s been most visible to voters as Harris’s supportive husband. He quickly befriended other political spouses in the Democratic primary, when Harris sought the party’s nomination. “I want more women in office, and I want more partners, whoever their partner is, to support them and to provide an opportunity and an environment for success,” Emhoff said in an October interview with the digital site NowThis News.

Chasten Buttigieg, the husband of former presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, said the two quickly formed a friendship as they swapped stories about people they were meeting and their strange “fish out of water” experiences as political spouses.

“He was just there for the right reasons,” Chasten Buttigieg said. “It was because he loved his wife, and he thought that she would make a great President.” Buttigieg, who also would have broken barriers as a male presidential spouse, said he remembered how often he was asked what title he would use.

(Emhoff hasn’t officially selected his title. But Biden has referred to him as the “second gentleman”.)