Harris breaks gender, race barriers as she is sworn in as US vice-president

Kamala Harris, flanked by her husband Doug Emhoff, is sworn in as the 49th US Vice President by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor on January 20, 2021, at the US Capitol in Washington, DC. Brendan SMIALOWSKI / AFP

By: Thomas I. Likness
Eagle News Service

WASHINGTON, D.C (Eagle News). — Kamala Harris has become the first woman and the first Black woman and person of South Asian heritage to hold the second-highest office in the United States.

The 56-year-old Senator from California took her oath of office moments before Joe Biden was inaugurated as the nation’s 46^th president.

Unlike her predecessors, Harris will have a much more active role in American politics.

With the American Senate split evenly between the Democrats and Republicans, as president of the Senate, Harris will cast any tie-breaking votes.

Harris is the daughter of immigrants. She is married to a Jewish man and stepmother to his two children.

She was first elected to the Senate four years ago.

Prior to that she had been California’s attorney General after several years as the district attorney in San Francisco.

(Eagle News Service)