California Senator Kamala Harris has chosen Rohini Kosoglu as the new chief of staff. According to Bustle, Kosoglu, who studied at the University of Michigan and The George Washington University, “got her first taste of national politics as a mailroom manager for Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) after she graduated…[working] her way up in Stabenow’s office to senior policy adviser, then moved on to Sen. Michael Bennett’s (D-Colo.) office as his senior health care adviser.”
The persistence paid off when after seven years at Bennett’s office, “Kosoglu got an offer from Harris, then a senator-elect, to work as deputy chief of staff.”
Born and raised in New Jersey, Kosoglu is the daughter of Sri Lankans from Jaffna, India Abroad reports. As a Sri Lankan American, Kosoglu is the only Asian American woman currently serving as the chief of staff for a U.S. senator. Kosoglu told India Abroad how Harris believes “that her staff should reflect the makeup of California and our country, but the Senate as a whole has more work to do in that regard.”
“As a woman of color in this position, I think it’s important to create a pipeline of talent,” Kosoglu also told Bustle.
This pipeline Kosoglu mentions aims to alter the demographics of senate staffing, which, for Democratic senators, is mostly comprised of women. According to Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer’s 2017 report, while 54 percent of staffers are women, 32 percent of staffers “are “non-Caucasian,” defined as African American, Asian/Pacific Islander, Latino, Native American or Middle Eastern/North African.”
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