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Sonia Sotomayor will swear in Kamala Harris on Inauguration Day.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor has sworn in a vice president before.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will be sworn in on Wednesday by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a ceremony in which the first woman of color to become vice president will take her oath from the first woman of color to sit on the Supreme Court.

Ms. Harris chose Justice Sotomayor for the task, according to a Harris aide who was confirming a report by ABC News. The vice president-elect and Justice Sotomayor have a shared background as former prosecutors. And Ms. Harris has called the justice a figure of national inspiration.

“Judge Sonia Sotomayor has fought for the voices of the people ever since her first case voting against corporations in Citizens United,” Ms. Harris wrote on Twitter in 2019. “As a critical voice on the bench, she’s showing all our children what’s possible.”

Justice Sotomayor, who was confirmed to the Supreme Court in 2009, swore in Joseph R. Biden Jr. for his second term as vice president in January 2013 (first in a private ceremony and again in public the next day because of a quirk of the calendar).

Michael Crowley is a White House correspondent, covering President Trump’s foreign policy. He joined The Times in 2019 from Politico, where he was the White House and national security editor, and a foreign affairs correspondent. More about Michael Crowley

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