Chicagoan Strautmanis headed to WH, too

By Christi Parsons and John McCormick

A Chicago native and longtime friend and aide to Barack Obama is being named chief of staff to Valerie Jarrett, the Chicago businesswoman and real-estate developer who will be Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Relations and Public Liaison.

Michael Strautmanis first came to know the Obamas when he worked as a paralegal for Michelle Obama at the Chicago law firm Sidley & Austin.

In Obama's U.S. Senate office, he served as an ambassador of sorts to key Democratic constituencies, such as African-American leaders, unions and other liberal interest groups.

During the presidential campaign, he played a similar role as a liaison between the campaign and members of Congress, other political leaders and groups.

Strautmanis practiced complex litigation and employment law in Chicago, before joining the Clinton Administration at the U.S. Agency for International Development. He also served as legislative director and counsel to then Rep. Rod Blagojevich, and helped the now troubled Illinois governor win election in 2002.

Like Obama, Strautmanis grew up an African-American child in a predominantly white world, connected to the immigrant experience through his father and admitted early to the corridors of privilege through financial aid at a prestigious local prep school.

In Strautmanis' case that was the Uptown neighborhood on Chicago's North Side, where he and his mother moved from the South Side after she married a Latvian immigrant. The school was the Jesuit-run St. Ignatius College Prep, one of Chicago's power Catholic schools.

His mother, Sandra Bradley-Strautmanis, taught at Jenner Elementary School on the grounds of the Cabrini-Green public housing project. His stepfather, Juris Strautmanis, was a guidance counselor at Jenner.

Strautmanis received his undergraduate degree from the University of Illinois before earning his law degree from the University of Illinois College of Law. He and his wife, Damona, have three children.