
Sri Lankan-American Rohini Kosoglu has been named Chief of Staff to California Senator Kamala Harris, who threw her hat into the 2020 US presidential race last week. Kosoglu enters the position as the only Asian-American woman currently serving as a US senator’s chief of staff.
“As a woman of colour in this position, I think it’s important to create a pipeline of talent,” Kosoglu told the women’s issues website Bustle, adding that diversity is an issue that Harris also “feels is important.”
Kosoglu’s promotion from deputy chief of staff reflects a diversity among Harris’ staffers that isn’t matched by all her Democratic colleagues. And the numbers bear that out.
According to a 2017 report released by Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, most senators from the party employ women staffers, but an overwhelming number of staffers are white.
At the time that report was released, Harris’ office employed the second-highest number of people of colour, behind only Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz’s office. The newly minted Chief of Staff told ‘Bustle’, that it’s important for lawmakers and senior congressional staff to reflect the demographics of the country.
“I think it’s important that when we advance diversity (in Congress), we also advance the ability to address many issues in front of us,” Kosoglu said. “Our staff reflects California — the makeup of California, as well as the country.”
Kosoglu, who attended the University of Michigan and The George Washington University, got her first taste of national politics as a mailroom manager for Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, after she graduated.
She worked her way up in Stabenow’s office to senior policy adviser, then moved on to Senator Michael Bennett’s office as his senior health care adviser while Congress crafted and passed Obamacare. After seven years with Bennett’s office, Kosoglu got an offer from Harris, then a senator-elect, to work as deputy chief of staff.
“I jumped at that chance to help her and the people of California get this office up and running,” Kosoglu said. Now, Kosoglu says that part of her job as chief of staff will be to keep the senator’s door open to young people, and show that that “this is the job that they can have. This is the job that they can see themselves in.”
A mother of two children, aged 3 and 5, Kosoglu said that being a mother and being a chief of staff to a senator “are not separate from each other.” If her son has a day off from school, he’ll visit the office and spend the workday there.
Juggling both roles has been made easier in an office where “we’re transparent about our lives,” Kosoglu said.