Felicia Morton | Fall 2000 Headlines

Karen Tramontano - A political dynamo

By Felicia Morton

WASHINGTON -- At 4-foot-11 inches, Karen Tramontano may be small, but this Providence native is a major player in national politics.

As Assistant to the President and Counselor to White House Chief of Staff John Podesta, this straight-talking 43-year-old whose portfolio includes labor, trade, economics and agriculture issues -- works just across the hall from the Oval Office.

A former lawyer with ties to organized labor, she also helps develop domestic and international labor initiatives for the Clinton administration. And as one of the White House's top openly gay staff members, she keeps track of issues of concern to the gay community and works with Congress on legislation such as the Hate Crime Prevention Act.

Last year, President Clinton commended her as one of the highest ranking openly gay appointees in the White House in a speech at the Empire State Pride gala - New York's statewide, non-partisan lesbian and gay political advocacy organization. "We've got all these great people from the administrationá I want to mention their names - the two highest ranking openly gay and lesbian appointees in the [White] House, Sean Maloney and Karen Tramontano," said Clinton.

Clinton added, "I think the fact that we have gay and lesbian Americansáserving in appointed positions in our government throughout the administration, doing normal jobsá" said Clinton. "They're out there showing up. And every time they come in contact with somebody, they destroy another stereotype."

Indeed, on any given day, Tramontano is at her desk in the West Wing, fielding calls from the President, the Vice President and Podesta or conducting meetings with officials from the Departments of Labor, Commerce, Treasury and the Office of Management and Budget developing legislation such as the Steel Act which aims to level the international playing field for the steel trade.

She describes herself as a "very low-profile" person who prefers to work behind the scenes to get things done. When asked to describe her job she simply said, "When things are broken I try to fix them and when they're not I try to leave them alone." Pretty humble for a White House staffer.

Tramontano attributes her passion for politics to her Rhode Island family. "My first experience was when my cousin, ran for the school board in North Providenceá Tom Zona," she said, remembering what first inspired her to get into politics. "I helped with literature drops, door knocking, etc. And he won."

Recently, while President Clinton stood in the backyard of the White House, and signed the momentous Permanent Normal Trade Relations bill with China, Tramontano was hard at work at her desk -- piled with papers and reports-- inside her small, windowless office in the West Wing. Her short brown hair, thick glasses and subdued olive-green pants suit may initially give her a conservative appearance, but on closer inspection, her triple-pierced ears and long, dangling earrings reveal her liberal leanings.

Tramontano prefers not to discuss her private life, but a profile last year in the "National Journal" said of Tramontano, "She'd like to escape more often with her partner of 13 years, Teresa Rankin, for weekends at a cabin on Maine's Blue Hill Bay."

Tramontano says the hours are long and the work can be draining at times, but she still loves her job.

"I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world," she said.

In fact, she said there are times when she can't believe that she is the assistant to the President of the United States. She recounted the first time she rode the helicopter enroute to Andrews Airforce Base with President Clinton as an example of that kind of a moment.

"We left early in the morning and we were flying above all the monumentsá" she mused. "Every once in a while you still pinch yourself."

Yet, there were other moments when Tramontano was not flying so high. When thousands of people descended on Seattle to protest the Clinton administration's support of the WTO- it was Tramontano who launched the counteroffensive.

"Leading the WTO is a job that nobody wanted," said Tramontano. "I actually volunteered for it."

She said that she tried to "bridge the gaps and heal the wounds" however, the protesters ended up stealing the show. "To say it didn't go as well as I had hoped is an understatement."

Tramontano's start in politics was serendipitous. In the early 1980s, while working as the National Education Association's overseas general council in Heidelberg, Germany she met David Evans in a restaurant. Evans was the director of the Senate education subcommittee who told her there was a job opening on a Senate labor and human resources committee. She followed up on the lead and landed a job as an assistant to the late Senator Clayborn Pell.

"It's kind of weird," she said. "People ask me how to get a job on Capitol Hill and I say go to a restaurant in Germany."

When the Democrats lost control of the Senate in 1984, during Ronald Reagan's presidency, Tramontano says she became frustrated and decided to head back to the private sector and began practicing law. Along with a partner, Dawn Martin, she started Martin & Tramontano, a law firm in D.C. in 1988, which specialized in employee and union representation. Money was tight then, said Tramontano, so she brought her mother down from Providence to cook for the law firm's opening night party.

"My mother cooked for days," said Tramontano. "And I think we got more clients because of my mother's cooking than anything else."

Tramontano said she got her second job in politics through happenstance. A friend asked her to attend a fundraiser for Sharon Pratt Kelly who was running for mayor of Washington in 1990.

"I made the fateful statement that I would be happy to go and give my $25, but I don't get involved in local political issues," said Tramontano.

But, as it turned out, she was won over by Kelly and her ideas and became actively involved in the campaign. When Kelly defeated incumbent Mayor Marion Berry, Tramontano gave up her law practice to become Kelly's chief of staff and legal counsel. While in this position, she attended demonstrations with Kelly about DC's lack of a voting representative in Congress.

"We staged a demonstration with Jessie Jackson," she said. "It was a mock tea party in which we dumped a cooler of ice tea on Independence Ave." Tramontano laughed as she recalled getting arrested for blocking the street without a permit, along with Jackson and Kelly.

Tramontano told "The Washington Post" last year that her job working for the mayor "was the hardest job I've ever done in my life. Expectations were unbelievable," she said. "We were supposed to cure everything that was wrong with the city."

After Kelly was defeated for re-election in 1994, Tramontano took a job at the Service Employees International Union (SEUI), an organization with more than one million members, where she headed up government affairs for John Sweeny - who at that time was the organization's president. While working there, she developed a grass roots system to educate and motivate the union's members on national labor issues.

"One of the things that was clear to me is that the members just didn't know enough about politics on a Federal level," she said.

Although, she did not know it, Tramontano's relationship with Sweeney would lead her straight to the White House. In 1997, John Sweeney recommended Tramontano to Vice President Al Gore when he and the President were looking for someone with ties to organized labor to head up the Democratic National Committee. After going through several rounds of interviews she got a surprising call from Chief of Staff John Podesta a few weeks later.

"John Podesta called me and said, I think I'm going to throw you a curve ball," said Tramontano. Her immediate thought was that she did not get the job. She was right. Instead, he told her the President wanted her on his White House staff. Tramontano, thrilled, accepted immediately. When asked if she thought she would ever end up in the White House she said, "Never, it never crossed my mind."

And Sweeney seems happy to have a pro-labor staffer in a top White House position.

"She continues to be a strong advocate for working family issues and we're hoping that she'll continue to work closely with us on these issues," said Sweeney. "She's certainly not forgotten her roots in terms for her own upbringing in the great state of Rhode Island and coming from the working class."

Tramontano attributes her concern for labor issues to her working class Rhode Island family. "My mom and dad were of modest means," said Tramontano. "My dad owns a liquor store in North Providence - Esquire liquor."

Although Tramontano has no plans to return to Rhode Island in the near future, she's mum about her next career move.

"If Vice President Gore is smart and wins, he'll keep her," said Alexis Simendinger, a White House Correspondent for "The National Journal." "She has institutional ties to labor which he needs. She'd be a terrific chief of staff."

"My plan is that I will stay here until January 20, then I'll resign," said Tramontano, adding that she has not had the time to explore any other opportunities.

Al Kamen, a political columnist for "The Washington Post", wrote recently that Tramontano has begun sitting in the chair at Podesta's left at White House senior staff meetings - a seat that has been traditionally reserved for the deputy chief of staff and suggested this could be a sign of what's to come.

Only Tramontano can say for sure and, at this point, she's not talking.