Doug Emhoff, the husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, has probably toured more COVID-19 vaccination centers than he ever imagined. If he ever imagined that at all. His drop-ins at places where people are rolling up their sleeves for a jab of protection have become a particular focus for Emhoff as he begins to shape his groundbreaking role as SGOTUS — the first “second gentleman of the United States.” It’s a sharp pivot from his past work as an entertainment lawyer. “These shots, they work. They’re painless,” Emhoff told Bishnu Subedi, a 28-year-old recent arrival to the U.S. from Nepal, who was getting her first Pfizer vaccine shot during his recent visit to Community Health Centers of Burlington in Vermont. “I did it twice. It’s all good,” said Emhoff, referring to the two Moderna vaccine doses that he and the vice president received earlier this year. Spouses of vice presidents, all women until now, typically spend their time promoting the president’s policies and some of their own causes — and Emhoff is no exception. He’s logged thousands of miles supporting President Joe Biden’s efforts to fight the pandemic, in the past few weeks alone making solo trips to vaccination sites in New Mexico, Maryland, Nebraska, Oregon, Washington state and Vermont, including Native American communities. He’s also helping promote other aspects of Biden’s $1.9 trillion virus and economic plan: touring food banks in Iowa and Nevada to highlight the administration’s response to a pandemic-driven increase in food insecurity and hunger nationwide. He has also called attention to the financial struggles facing small businesses, dropping in on such establishments during his travels, and has advocated for making affordable, high-speed Internet more widely available across the country. Trips to promote Biden’s jobs and families’ plans are in the offing. Emhoff, 56, was living a quite different life in southern California not long ago. He was the divorced father of a son and daughter when he and Harris — then California’s attorney general — were set up by a friend in 2013. They married the following year. Two years later, Harris was elected to the U.S. Senate. Last year, she became the first woman, Black person and Indian American elected vice president. Emhoff, who had built a career as a high-profile entertainment lawyer, resigned from the Los Angeles office of the DLA Piper law firm to focus on supporting his wife and on his historic role, approaching it as the start-up operation it essentially is. “I am honored to be the first male spouse of an American President or Vice President,” he tweeted Jan. 21, the Biden administration’s first full day. “But I’ll always remember generations of women have served in this role before me—often without much accolade or acknowledgment. It’s their legacy of progress I will build on as Second Gentleman.” It is a historic shift for politics and for political unions. For the first time, a man is taking on the more traditional spousal role of administration cheerleader — not policymaker — and supporter and confidant of the vice president. “This is going to offer an alternative vision of what it can mean to be a husband,” said Cassandra Good, an assistant professor of history at Marymount University. In another first for Emhoff, he is the first Jewish spouse of a president […]

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