WASHINGTON (AP) – Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will be sworn in by Supreme Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor on Wednesday, a landmark event in which the first black, South Asian and female vice president will take her oath from the first Justice Latin.
Harris chose Sotomayor for the task, according to a person familiar with the decision. She will also use two Bibles for the oath, one of which belonged to Thurgood Marshall, the first black Supreme Court judge.
ABC news first reported on the latest details of Harris’ inauguration plans.
Harris expressed admiration for Sotomayor and Marshall. She and Sotomayor share experiences as prosecutors, and once she called Marshall – like Harris, a former student at Howard University – one of his “greatest heroes”.
The vice president-elect said in a video posted on Twitter that she saw Marshall as “one of the main reasons I wanted to be a lawyer”, calling him “a fighter” in court.
And this will be the second time that Sotomayor participates in an inauguration. She swore President-elect Joe Biden as vice president in 2013.