Michael Strautmanis

Why He Matters Strautmanis is one of Barack and Michelle Obama’s closest friends. He met them at Sidney Austin LLP in Chicago when he was a paralegal. He later went to law school and became involved in politics. He worked on a variety of campaigns and in the Clinton administration before joining Obama’s staff in the Senate. He is known as someone who can get things done, and Obama describes him as “a utility man.” Strautmanis joined the transition team after Obama was elected president and was later named chief of staff to senior Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett. His job in Obama’s Senate office included serving as an ambassador to unions and African Americans, two key constituencies. The Office of Public Liaison meets with interest groups to discuss and promote the president’s policies. Path to Power Strautmanis was born in Chicago. His single mother was a teacher at Jenner Elementary School, which was on the grounds of the infamous Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago’s South Side. But Strautmanis spent most of his childhood in Chicago’s tony north-side neighborhoods, where he and his mom moved after she married a Latvian immigrant.(1) His stepfather, a guidance counselor at Jenner Elementary and a member of Cikagas piecisi (The Chicago Five), a band famous in Chicago’s Latvian neighborhoods,(2) adopted Strautmanis, “which is how I got that long name.”(3) They moved to Chicago’s North Side, and Strautmanis’ parents, who he says always stressed the value of education, sent him to St. Ignatius College Prep, a Jesuit-run school that was one of the best in the city. He started as a theater major at University of Illinois but eventually graduated with a degree in advertising.(1) He decided in college to be a bike messenger “because I heard they made good money and I was too much of a fool to realize I was putting my life in my hands.”(4) Delivering packages to a big-time law firm in downtown Chicago, Strautmanis decided “this must be the best place to be.”(1) He got a job as a paralegal at the law firm, Sidley Austin, to try to learn what lawyers do, and he became friends with a young attorney named Michelle Robinson. Robinson introduced him to her boy friend, Barack Obama, whom Strautmanis had heard about because Sidley Austin was aggressively recruiting him to return to the firm the year after he worked there as a summer associate. Obama and Strautmanis met on the basketball court at Robinson’s uncle’s house, “and we’ve all been friends ever since.”(3) Strautmanis returned to the University of Illinois to study law and earned his J.D. in 1994. He wanted to work in politics, so he introduced himself to Tom Hynes, a South Side Chicago political boss, at a Christmas party and worked with Hynes’ son, Dan, on the 1996 Clinton-Gore campaign in Illinois. After the campaign, Strautmanis handed his resume to then-U.S. Assistant Attorney General Deval Patrick after Patrick delivered a speech in Chicago. A Clinton administration appointment earned him a job at the U.S. Agency for International Development until he moved to then-Rep. Rod Blagojevich’s office as the director of legislative affairs. Strautmanis stayed in Washington when Blagojevich became Illinois’ governor and worked briefly for the Association of Trial Lawyers of America.(5) He stayed in touch with Obama and volunteered on his Senate campaign in 2004. He became the chief counsel and deputy chief of staff for Obama’s Senate office before joining his 2008 presidential campaign.(6) Strautmanis now serves as chief of staff to Valerie Jarrett, who is special assistant to the president for the Office of Public Liaison. The job is very similar to the outreach position Strautmanis held in Obama’s Senate office from 2006 to 2008.(7) The Issues Strautmanis is a senior adviser to the president and the first lady. Obama describes him as a “utility man,” and campaign advisor and Obama family friend Valerie Jarrett says he’s the person you call when you need help with a delicate situation. “He understands the importance of the personal touch and that e-mails and phone calls are not always appropriate,” she said. “There are times when a face-to-face is just the right thing to do. He dropped everything and hopped on a plane.”(1) While in Obama’s Senate office, he often worked as a pseudo-ambassador to important Democratic interest groups such as unions and African American leaders, and he continued the ambassador role during the campaign, liasing with members of Congress and important constituencies while Obama was away from Washington campaigning.(1) Strautmanis has an autistic child. During the 2009 health-care reform debate, he felt compelled to speak out after ex-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) stated that her baby with Down's syndrome would lose coverage under Obama's health-reform plan. Strautmanis cut a video in which he said, "That simply is not true," and explained that health care for disabled children would "improve." "I got really offended," Strautmanis said. (8) Speaking with reporters in 2008 about Obama’s proposed disability policy, he said that there has been a lack of leadership in the federal government on autism policy. He said: “I felt that as far back as this moment [when he found that he could get treatment for his son easier than most because he was close friends with Obama] I had a responsibility to advocate for, work for, not only my child, but all of us, not only the other children dealing with the autism spectrum disorder, but the adults, the village, the medical community, the educators, everybody that is pulling together.”(9) The Network Obviously, Strautmanis’ most important contacts are President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama. Strautmanis met Michelle before going to law school and quickly became friends with both Obamas. Another fellow Illinois Law student was Rep. Jesse L. Jackson Jr. The friends spent long nights studying together at the International House of Pancakes. Footnotes 1. Dorning, Mike and Parsons, Christi, “Obama advisor worked path to key campaign role; Candidate like ‘older brother’ to fellow Chicagoan who works as liason in Washington,” Chicago Tribune, Aug. 10, 2008 2. “Senior aide to Sen. Obama meets with Baltic Reps,” Cikaga.com 3. Interview posted by Zachary Scott Edwards, “African American Leadership Meeting with Michael Strautmanis,” Oct. 24, 2007 4. Interview posted by Zachary Scott Edwards, “African American Leadership Meeting with Michael Strautmanis,” Oct. 24, 2007 5. Newsletter from the Dean of the University of Illinois Law School, March 2008 6. Press release for Obama for America, “Obama campaign announces Congressional liaison team,” July 7, 2008 7. Parsons, Christi and McCormick, John, “A Chicago-style welcome mat; Obama rounds out public liaison office with 3 hometown pals,” Chicago Tribune, Dec. 6, 2008 8. Interview with WhoRunsGov.com, September 2009 9. Chew, Kristina, “A statement from Mike Strautmanis, Obama’s chief counsel,” Autism Vox, Sept. 3, 2008