US Vice President Kamala Harris will be sworn in on Wednesday with the help of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, the US Supreme Court’s first Spanish judge, an adviser to Joe Biden’s running mate reported Saturday.
This plan aims to underline the historic moment that will be the inauguration of Harris, who will be the first female vice president of the United States, as well as the first woman of black race and Asian roots to reach the White House.
For her part, Sotomayor, born in New York and whose parents were Puerto Rican, became the first Spanish judge in the country’s history to go to the Supreme Court in 2009, after being nominated by then-President Barack Obama (2009-2017 ).
Currently, Sotomayor is part of the minority of three progressive Supreme Court justices, and is probably the figure most admired by Supreme Court Democrats, following the death of veteran Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg last September.
Harris will be sworn in as vice president on Wednesday at a ceremony outside the Capitol in Washington, shortly before Biden is sworn in, in his case before Chief Justice, Conservative Judge John Roberts.
The oath of both offices consists of repeating a short phrase that Roberts and Sotomayor will recite to them, pledging Biden and Harris to diligently exercise their new positions and defend the Constitution.
While being sworn in, Harris will put his hand on two Bibles, as is tradition in the country, said a vice-president-elect adviser, quoted by various media outlets, who asked for anonymity.
The first Bible he will use was from a friend of Harris’ family, Regina Shelton; and the second belonged to the late Judge Thurgood Marshall, who was the first African-American to serve on the Supreme Court and is one of the great credentials of the vice-president-elect, the adviser explained.
Biden, for his part, plans to use the same Bible that he used to swear in office for that purpose during his political career: a huge tome that has been in his family’s possession since 1893 and that is nearly 13 inches wide. is (5 inches).
The President-elect last relied on that Bible to swear during his second term as Vice President of the US in 2013, a ceremony that also saw Judge Sotomayor sworn in.
The inauguration will take place with a limited audience due to the protocols to prevent contamination by Covid-19, and its security device will be the most powerful in the country’s history, with up to 25,000 soldiers deployed to Washington, given fears of new attacks following the June 6 attack on the Capitol.