Kamala Harris shattered an unyielding glass ceiling when she stepped into her role as vice president of the United States. And while we can credit her with one of the biggest achievements in women’s history, she had a few predecessors. Kamala was likely taking a few pointers from Hillary Clinton‘s playbook when she ran for president in the 2024 election. Or, perhaps she was getting earfuls of information from her own sister, Maya Harris, who was once Clinton’s close confidant.

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The truth about Maya Harris is that she took after her older sister, forming a career in law — she graduated from Stanford Law School. The lawyer and public policy advocate then followed Kamala into the political ring, working on her sister’s campaign for San Francisco district attorney in 2003. She didn’t stop there.

In 2016, Maya — who has been likened to Pippa Middleton and Robert F. Kennedy — worked as a senior advisor on the Hillary Clinton campaign for president. She was described as an indispensable cog in the Clinton machine, working directly with the presidential candidate to define her possible agenda while in office. John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman at the time, told The New Yorker that if Clinton were to win (of course, we know the outcome now), Maya was likely going to be offered a commanding position in the West Wing. Her sister evidently beat her to it.

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Maya Harris’ passion and pursuit for justice is not random. In fact, she was raised at a thoughtful dinner table. Maya and Kamala Harris’ parents met during the civil rights movement of the 1960s. They marched hand-in-hand for justice and ultimately passed their principles on to their daughters. “When it came to Kamala and me, Mommy had great expectations for us, but she had even greater expectations of us,” Maya said of her late mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, in her 2024 speech at the Democratic National Convention. “She raised us to believe that we could be and do anything. And we believed her.”

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Maya translated her family’s values into her career in policy. Her role as an advisor on Hillary Clinton’s campaign was predominantly to develop policies that addressed the issues Clinton heard on the campaign trail. “We did Google hangouts with people in Iowa and New Hampshire,” Maya told Elle in 2015. “We spoke not only to people who have had issues with this in their own lives, but people on the ground — first responders, police officers, peer counselors.” Something she and Clinton felt in tandem was that politics were personal. “You can never separate yourself from who you are,” Maya explained. “You bring your whole self to everything that you do, and that includes this work that I do.”

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