Suri Kasirer
founder, Kasirer Consulting
Bruce Teitelbaum
private equity investor; former mayoral chief of staff and Senate campaign manager for Rudolph Giuliani
married for: 8 years

How did you meet?
Kasirer: We met [in 1993] when he was on the Giuliani campaign and I was helping Dinkins.
Teitelbaum: I would see her very frequently at campaign events and thought she was a very sweet person even though she was a misguided liberal Democrat. A about three or four months of bumping into her pretty much on a regular basis, I though to myself it would be nice to ask her out, which I did immediately following the election.

Have you ever disagreed on a political issue?
Teitelbaum: We have different political philosophies. Suri thinks that government is great and that government solves people’s problems and that government is the answer to almost all problems and I think the opposite. ... It’s sort of fun to see how the debate goes and who can make a more persuasive point. We don’t sweep it under the rug.
Kasirer: The only thing we really can’t talk about is Israeli politics. You know it’s such a hot topic, we can’t talk about that.

What’s your favorite way to escape from all of it?
Kasirer: We go out with friends a lot. We love to travel. We go to Italy every summer, somewhere different in Italy — we have a lot of friends there.
Teitelbaum: We just had a daughter, so a lot of our attention and energy is focused on her.

Would you want your kids to go into politics?
Kasirer: I’d love to see her go into politics. I always tell her, ‘You’re going to Washington,’ you know?
Teitelbaum: God forbid. ... It can be very, very unforgiving and I’d rather for her to choose something that would be more fulfilling for her and less confrontational, less tumultuous, if you would. But as long as she’s happy, she can do whatever she wants.

—DW

David Yassky
City Council member (D-Brooklyn)
Diana Fortuna
President of the Citizens Budget Commission
married for: Fortuna: Do you remember, David? Yassky: 16 years. This year it will be 17 …on June 30.

How did you meet?
Yassky: We met in city government while working at the budget office in Albany.
Fortuna: Under Koch, when Koch was mayor.
Yassky: When I started there, Diana gave a presentation to the new people. I was very struck by her.

How did you go from a work relationship to a romantic one?
Fortuna: Delicately.
Yassky: But in our case, rapidly.
Fortuna: I was immediately drawn to David as someone with a lot of passion —
Yassky: for making the lives of New Yorker better.
Fortuna: We had a lot of shared interests.
Yassky: I personally thought Diana was very attractive.
Fortuna: Not to mention that he’s extremely cute.

What’s your favorite way to escape from it all?
Fortuna: I don’t think we do that.
Yassky: Well, Diana sings and was just in an opera here in Brooklyn in December, so that is a way for her to relax.
Fortuna: David’s idea of relaxing is watching the seven seasons of the West Wing with our 13-year-old daughter. They hit the pause button and she asks, ‘What’s a filibuster?’ and then they talk for ten minutes about it.

Have you ever disagreed on a political issue?
Yassky: Of course…I supported the Transportation Bond Act —
Fortuna: and the CBC did not.

Would you want your kids to go into politics?
Yassky: If that’s what they want. We’re very blessed with two marvelous daughters who have a lot of interests and energy and I am confident about them figuring out what they want to do.
Fortuna: They certainly have been exposed to a lot of politics. I’ve often wondered how that will impact them. They’ve been dragged to a lot of political campaigning events. David tries to disguise them by saying they’re fun.
Yassky: I don’t take them too often. Only when it’s absolutely necessary.

—CCZ

Karen Persichili Keogh
Director of New York State office,
Sen. Hillary Clinton (D)
Mike Keogh
Director of Finance Division, City Council
married for: 8 years

How did you meet?
Keogh: I called Karen to see if the Council member she was working for would be interested in sponsoring legislation to help Irish nationals.
Persichili Keogh: And I had no idea what he was talking about.
Keogh: But that didn’t stop her from saying sure.

Do you talk about work at home?
Persichili Keogh: We more talk about what’s going on that day or what’s in the news. It’s not so much that Mike comes home and says, ‘Today I talked to this organization and they want this.’ Or I go in and say, ‘I was advising Hillary on this legislation today.’ It’s more global, big picture stuff.

Do your professional lives overlap?
Keogh: I actually knew her boss before she did.
Persichili Keogh: And I knew your boss long before you did! But when I met the senator, she was looking at my résumé, and she said, ‘I know a Mike Keogh.’ And I said, ‘That’s my husband.’ And she said, ‘Oh my god, he’s your husband?’ She really lit up. And it was always a joke with Mike, like, ‘Oh yeah, you got me my job.’

How do you escape from it all?
Persichili Keogh: Disneyworld. We went to Disneyworld for Thanksgiving last year.

Have you ever disagreed on a political issue?
Keogh: Well I was working for Mike Bloomberg in 2005, and Karen vigorously supported Freddy Ferrer. And Karen won the argument, but I won the election.
Persichili Keogh: I always win the arguments.

Would you want your kids to go into politics?
Persichili Keogh: We have a 12-year-old daughter. She loves what we do. … She really sees what it’s like and she really gets what politics are all about.
Keogh: She’s keyed into the fact that we both work for strong women in the public eye.

—AH

Jerrold Nadler
U.S. representative (D-Manhattan/Brooklyn)
Joyce Miller
Director of real estate investment for the New York City pension funds, New York City Comptroller’s office
married for: 30 years

How did you meet?
Nadler: It was a New Year’s Day party . . . I was talking to a bunch of people and Joyce and a friend came in and sort of came up to the group I was talking with and I didn’t know them, so I asked Joyce who she was, and she told me her name and I told her her address and I looked at her friend and I said, ‘What’s your name?’ and I told her her address. And I knew the two addresses because their names and addresses had been on a McGovern volunteer list three years earlier and we started talking after that and that was it.

Do your professional lives ever overlap?
Nadler: Joyce years ago was a Democratic district leader, when I was in the Assembly — she was a district leader from 1983 to ‘93. And in fact when I was elected to Congress, she and Scott Stringer were the campaign managers. And she’s been involved in all my campaigns, obviously —she’s a very skillful political person.

Have you ever disagreed on a political issue?
Nadler: We both supported Cranston for president in 1984. When Cranston dropped out, I went for Mondale, she went for Hart.
Miller: I felt that Mondale wasn’t going to win and I also felt that I wanted to be part of a small campaign. ... I got to be a delegate at the convention and a whip for the Hart New York delegation. So, I got to tell all these big shots when to stand up and sit down. And he didn’t have tickets. He had to scrounge for a pass every day.

Would you want your kids to go into politics?
Nadler: If he wanted to, sure, and if he didn’t, also sure.
Miller: No. I’d like him to have a social conscience. And I want him to be active on behalf of the right causes ... to really be involved and aware, but not to run for office. It’s a very difficult life and it’s not a life like other people have. It’s a very different way of life. And there are some really great things about it, but there are also a lot of sacrifices and it’s very hard on your family.

—DW

Michael Benjamin
Assembly Member (D-Bronx)
Kennedy Williams-Benjamin
Chief of staff, Assembly Member Michael Benjamin
married for: 39 months

How did you meet?
Benjamin: We met at around 1:30 in the afternoon, back on Nov. 5th of 2003.
Williams-Benjamin: I was producing and directing a play in his district, at a senior center. I went to him to ask for money to produce my play. I never got the money, but he was kind enough to show the appreciation for what I was doing. … He came to the play. He came for three days straight, he sat with the seniors, and it was fantastic. And finally we went out to lunch.

Do you talk about work?
Benjamin: The office needed somebody with direction, and who has good judgment when I’m not there. Kennedy has all that. She knows how I think, she knows what’s important, she knows people — that’s a great skill to have when you’re running a political office. Sadly, I’m unable to compensate her — she’s a volunteer chief of staff. We want to avoid any appearance of nepotism.
Williams-Benjamin: I guess sometimes it feels as though we only talk about politics. It’s probably me. I would bring up things about things that I feel that Michael is doing or not doing, or should be doing.

Have you ever disagreed on a political issue?
Benjamin: The abortion pill, Plan-B. Back in 2003, when the Assembly had first passed it, I had voted for it. After discussing it with her, telling her about my vote in 2003, in 2004, I changed my mind and voted in opposition only because it did not allow for parents to be informed as to their underage daughter taking such a powerful prescription.

What’s your favorite way to escape?
Williams-Benjamin: The only way I know for me to escape is to go on a vacation, and that is not happening. … The reason I do this is because I believe in Michael. … You find so many people out here in politics, it’s just politicking. The way that he cares for those seniors, and the way that he cares for the things he does now — that to me is an attraction.

—EIRD

Eric Gioia
City Council member (D-Queens)
Lisa Hernandez Gioia
President, The Esler Group
married for: 2 years (dating for 4 years before that)

How did you meet?
Hernandez Gioia: I’m from Seattle and I moved to New York at the end of 1999. I was doing some work on the Gore campaign in Washington before I left. I walked into the Gore campaign here and I met Eric.
Gioia: Lisa walked in and was basically like, ‘I’m here to help. What can I do?’ It was her can-do attitude, and her vigor and energy…I guess that’s redundant, vigor and energy.
Hernandez Gioia: So I was helping organize the victory party for Gore in Nashville. The night before an election, there’s not really so much you can do on the campaign. So we went to Opryland and went bowling. And that was it.
Gioia: We drank bowling pin-shaped Budweiser. You don’t think that you’re really going to impress a woman you like by drinking bottles of bowling pin shaped beer at Opryland. But it was the best date I’ve ever had in my life. Not that I had many dates before.

Do you talk about work?
Gioia: I don’t think it ever comes up in the sense that it’s the day-to-day, minute-to-minute stuff. It comes up a lot with Lisa saying, ‘I had to wait for three No. 7 trains to go by before I could get on this morning. And we need to fix this.’

What’s your favorite way to escape from it all?
Hernandez Gioia: Right now, we have a little baby. So our way of escaping is being with her.
Gioia: We’ve learned that if you feed a seven-month-old about eight or nine ounces of milk, she will sleep for a movie. So one of the most important things I want to do this year is dispel the myth that you when you have children you can’t go to the movies.

Have you ever disagreed on a political issue?
Gioia: I’m a Met fan. She’s a Yankee fan.
Hernandez Gioia: Our daughter has both hats. She has a Mets hat and a Yankees hat.
Gioia: We disagree on things, but there’s a presumption that Lisa is usually right. I can overcome that presumption, but it requires a lot of evidence. Our strengths complement each other.

Would you want your kids to go into politics?
Gioia: It’s the parents’ job to make sure their child has the opportunity to live up to their ability and whatever talents she’s blessed with. She has our genes.

—AH

Judy Rapfogel
Chief of Staff, Assembly Speaker
Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan)
William Rapfogel
Chief Executive Officer, Metropolitan
Council on Jewish Poverty
married for: 33 years

How did you meet?
Willie Rapfogel: We met at the Educational Alliance on the Lower East Side where I had actually started a program for young teenagers who were hanging out in the streets, and Judy came to work at that program.
Judy Rapfogel: We were married a year later, I think.
Willie Rapfogel: Less than a year later. We met in August of ‘72, we were engaged in December of ‘72, married June of ‘73.
Judy Rapfogel: We were 18 at the time.

Do your professional lives ever overlap?
Willie Rapfogel: I think we’ve been very cognizant of it, very watchful about it, and careful to avoid conflicts wherever possible. The biggest conflict we ever had was a scheduling conflict once. At a breakfast for a Jewish organization, Shelly Silver was getting an award and I was supposed to present it. Shelly was stuck in Albany, couldn’t get to the breakfast, and Judy was the representative getting the award. So we felt a little weird. But we actually got breakfast together for the first time together in ages.
Judy Rapfogel: And when matters regarding Met Council come up in terms of the state, I don’t participate in those discussions.

Have you ever disagreed on a political issue?
Willie Rapfogel: Of course. Our organization is non-partisan, and Judy works for a Democrat. … George and Laura Bush have both given to the Met Council. There’s a video up on our website that includes a little mention by George Bush of Met Council in one of his speeches, which I’m sure every time Judy sees it, says ‘Oh God, a Republican.’—
Judy Rapfogel: Every time, I’m proud and I cringe.
Willie Rapfogel: One of our biggest challenges is that my organization is completely non-partisan, and we work with everybody, and I’m sure it causes some difficulty at times when Judy’s boss may be in a disagreement with an elected official, maybe a Republican like George Pataki or Rudy Giuliani, and our organization works with them. It’s got to make for some level of discomfort for both of us. But we get through it.

Would you want your kids to go into politics?
Judy Rapfogel: I think it’s interesting that Willie and I both work to improving people’s lives in different ways. He does it through non-profits, I do it through government. Our children have found different ways of doing the very same thing.

—EIRD

Betsy Gotbaum
Public advocate (D)
Victor Gotbaum
Labor leader
married for: 29 1/2 years

How did you meet?
Betsy Gotbaum: I was John Lindsay’s assistant for education and we were at a meeting in the chancellor’s office in the Department of Education, and I was there with the budget director, and he was there screaming and yelling at the chancellor. Nothing happened then. I remembered being appalled at the language that he used.
Victor Gotbaum: During the Howie Samuels campaign, I came out of a meeting there that was going from disaster to most disastrous, and I come out, she confronts me, she says, ‘That schmuck Ken Auletta, he may be a good writer, but he shouldn’t be running a campaign.’ I’m putting it on poor Ken. I walk away from her, I go about 10 feet, I said, ‘That kid’s smart.’ I ask her out for dinner, and that was it.
Betsy Gotbaum: We didn’t really start seeing each other until a little bit after that. But that was where we reconnected. He played tennis, and so I deigned to play tennis with him.

Do you talk about work?
Betsy Gotbaum: We talk more about politics in general. He doesn’t get into the nitty-gritty of my work.
Do your professional lives ever overlap?
Victor Gotbaum: We had sort of an alternate — in the first 15 years, I was doing my thing and she was at my side, and then as I got older, she was going to do things. I think we have a good relationship. If we have disagreements and it’s in her area, then she’s going to make a decision. If it’s in my area, then I make a decision.

Have you ever disagreed on a political issue?
Betsy Gotbaum: Oh sure, we have political disagreements. He may want a candidate that I don’t want or like, or vice versa.
Victor Gotbaum: We very rarely disagree on politics. We’re having a disagreement now, because I think she should go for the big one, and she’s very reluctant. She hasn’t turned me down yet — I just think she’s the number two person in New York, and I think she’d be the best god-damned mayor the city’s ever had.

—EIRD

Jessica Loeser
Legislative counsel, Assembly Speaker
Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan)
Stu Loeser
Press secretary, Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R)
married for: 2 years

How did you meet?
Stu Loeser: We met at the State Democratic Convention in 2004.
Jessica Loeser: Stu was working for Chuck Schumer.
Stu Loeser: I was working for Chuck Schumer. He was being renominated for the Senate... I had a cancelled event, I had a little bit of extra time, I saw her working. … And I asked a mutual friend, Chuck’s director of intergovernmental operations, who she was — she was clearly a staffer — and instead of telling me, he went up to her and said, ‘Chuck’s press guy is asking who you are; what do you think?’ And she said—
Jessica Loeser: I said, ‘I’m working, I don’t know why you have time to have this conversation,’ and kind of walked away.
Stu Loeser: But eventually, we exchanged names and telephone numbers, and we went out.

Do you talk about work?
Stu Loeser: We don’t talk about specifics of our work. Obviously we talk about our lives, we talk about work. We don’t talk about areas in which there could be a disagreement. We just don’t. We agree that we can’t talk about certain things.

Do your professional lives ever overlap?
Stu Loeser: We’d been married nine weeks when Speaker Silver killed — I was working for the mayor already—
Jessica Loeser: When Shelly told the mayor ‘no’—
Stu Loeser: When the speaker told the mayor that there would not be a—
Jessica Loeser: West Side Stadium.
Stu Loeser: A sports and convention center on the West Side of Manhattan.
Jessica Loeser: I guess that was our honeymoon.

Would you want your kids to go into politics?
Jessica Loeser: We have a lot of plans for our imaginary children. Careers we haven’t mapped out just yet.

—EIRD

Greg Atkins
Chief of staff, Brooklyn Borough President
Marty Markowitz (D)
Julie Hendricks
Account executive, Geto & de Milly
married for: 3 years

How did you meet?
Atkins: In August of 1999, there was a young Democrats convention in Little Rock, Arkansas. I was part of the New York delegation that went to Little Rock, and Julie was part of the Oklahoma delegation. We met on the platform committee. We were having an intense debate as to whether there should be an anti-death penalty platform for the Democrats. And I won.
Hendricks: We saw each other from across the room.
Atkins: We actually didn’t get together until 2001 when Julie was working on the [Jim] McGreevey campaign and was in New Jersey.

What’s your favorite way to escape?
Atkins: We have two ways. First, which is more common because it’s in our face every day, is we just bought a house last year in Dyker Heights. Let’s just say it’s not your classic fixer-upper but we’re redoing each room. And that’s a lot of work. We also love to travel. Last November we went to Portugal.
Hendricks: There’s usually a post-election trip. That’s when the Blackberries go off.

Do you talk about work?
Hendricks: The only hard and fast rule we have is no impressions of political figures at home, which Greg is quite fond of.

Have you ever disagreed on a political issue?
Atkins: We still haven’t settled the death penalty issue.
Hendricks: That’s one that we still argue to this day.
Atkins: We talk more about strategy. We may disagree on strategy a little bit here and there.
Hendricks: You disagree with me on strategy?
Atkins: Uh-oh! It really just means in the details. Which means I follow her strategy, I put my two cents in, and it goes from there.

—AH

Adam Freed
Assistant comptroller,
Office of the State Comptroller
Dara Freed
Former finance director, reelection
campaign of Sen. Hillary Clinton (D);
member of finance team, Clinton
transition from reelection to presidential
exploration committee
married for: 3 years

How did you meet?
Adam Freed: We worked together on a 2001 mayoral campaign [Alan Hevesi], so politics brought us together.
Dara Freed: Very slowly, basically people thought we were a couple. Once we convinced them we were not, we decided to become one.

Do you talk about work?
Adam Freed: We try not to, but it happens. For the most part we try to focus on other things.
Dara Freed: But it’s much more, ‘How was your day’ as opposed to ‘Hey, this is what happened.’

What’s your favorite way to escape?
Dara Freed: Movies and travel.
Adam Freed: We’re lucky, because those happen to be two of my favorite things.

Have you ever disagreed on a political issue?
Adam and Dara Freed: Yeah.
Dara Freed: We sort of talk it through and agree to disagree…
Adam Freed: It’s never something we can’t work through.

Would you want your kids to go into politics?
Dara Freed: If that was what they wanted to do…
Adam Freed: That’s exactly what I was going to say. We would want them to do what would make them happiest.

—CCZ

Gregory Meeks
U.S. representative, (D-Queens)
Simone-Marie Meeks
Communications policy advisor for
community health, Nassau County
married for: 10 years

How did you meet?
Gregory Meeks: We met in Albany, when I was a member of the state Assembly and my wife was the chief of staff for Gloria Davis.

Do your professional lives ever overlap?
Gregory Meeks: Definitely in Albany. Not as much here, because I’m in Washington and she’s in Nassau County. But there’s some ideas at times that she may have and may be utilizing in Nassau and I try to piggy-back on them.

Has there ever been a conflict of interest?
Simone-Marie Meeks: No, because [in the Assembly] he was a member, he could vote. I just followed directions. There was no conflict for me.
Gregory Meeks: There’s conflict in the sense that there’s times when we have difference of opinions.

What sort of political issues have you disagreed on?
Simone-Marie Meeks: There were several people running for a Congressional seat [11th district] in Brooklyn. I was clear on who I wanted to have that seat. And he begged me that ‘whoever wins is going to be my colleague. I can’t have you going to Brooklyn, campaigning for anyone’ ... I did not venture into Brooklyn because that’s not what I should have done. But I might add that my candidate [Yvette Clarke] sits in Congress today.

Would you want your kids to go into politics?
Simone-Marie Meeks: On the one hand, I would like to protect our daughters from anything that has to do with running for public office. And at the same time, we’ve taught them that there is a reason that you go into political office and it’s about service and the things you can do.
Gregory Meeks: I would be proud of them in whatever they endeavor and I would never encourage anyone to necessarily go into politics, but one is starting to show some interest there, and so I won’t discourage it, either.

—DW

Norman Siegel
Civil rights attorney
Saralee Evans
Acting justice, State Supreme Court,
New York County
married for: 6 1/2 years

How did you meet?
Evans: It was the year that the vote changed from 21 to 18. He went to work for the Civil Liberties Union again in 1973 and when the impeachment of Richard Nixon started fomenting, the CLU had an impeachment project. They decided to hire someone for the duration of the project and Norman called me and hired me and we worked together for about a year. We got to know each other and liked each other.
Siegel: Our first date we went to ‘Saturday Night Live’ to see my friend Julian Bond, who was on ‘Saturday Night Live.’ I don’t remember vaguely if Saralee was impressed with going to ‘SNL’ and seeing Julian Bond, but her daughter Rachel was very impressed. I became cool.

Do you ever talk about work?
Evans: Do we ever talk about anything else? Two lawyers who are married have a common language, and we both love our work. We both love being lawyers and think it’s a noble profession and talk about the things we love all the time.

Do your professional lives overlap?
Evans: When I ran to become a civil court judge, and Norman was the head of the CLU — and it’s a non-partisan organization, so Norman’s board did not allow him to appear in any pictures with me for campaign purposes and did not allow him to do anything on my behalf.
Siegel: My biggest asset I couldn’t make use of in my campaign [for Public Advocate], my wife Saralee, wonderful in her social interactions and as bright as they come. But it’s a reality that you have to face.

Do you want your kids to go into politics?
Siegel: Our granddaughter Emma says she wants to be a judge. I’ve told her that you have to be a lawyer first.
Evans: You have to get out of first grade. And learn to read.

—KF

Jeff Simmons
Communications Director, office of New York City Comptroller Bill Thompson
Alfonso Quiroz
Spokesperson, Con Edison
Together for: 4 years

How did you meet?
Quiroz: We met at the U.S. Open. We were invited by a mutual friend and he was sitting in between us and it just kind of went from there.

Do you talk about work?
Simmons: Oh yes, all the time. We talk a lot about politics, government, everything.
Quiroz: I think that’s one of the reasons our relationship works so well is that we both understand the strains upon us and we both understand the need to be out there and act quickly and pay attention to what’s going on in the news and be involved.

Do your professional lives ever overlap?
Simmons: There are times when a reporter will call me, asking ‘Do you have an energy expert?’, so I’ll refer them over to Alfonso to just talk about Con Ed. And then he’ll tell me about reporters who have a government question to see if I can help out.

What’s your favorite way to escape ?
Quiroz: We both love cooking. He’s a very good cook. I think the thing that makes it click is we both really enjoy our careers. And I think that’s what makes it so nice. You don’t have to be turned off unless you really want to be.

Have you ever disagreed on a political issue?
Simmons: We’re both Democrats. I dated a Republican once, and it’s not happening again.
—NP

Jonathan Bing
Assembly member (D-Manhattan)
Meredith Ballew
Executive Director, Wall Street Rising
married for: 1 year (dating for three years before that)

How did you meet?
Ballew: My first job out of grad school was working for a small fundraising firm called McEvoy & Associates. Jonathan had just won his primary and came over and started using our firm as his general election fundraising firm and so we met because he was a client of ours.
Bing: I asked her out about 2 a.m. on election night. ... I think we were both interested during the campaign, but neither of us thought it was wise to try and begin a relationship during a very exhausting campaign process.

Do you talk about work?
Ballew: We do, I mean we’ve always been interested in politics I think our whole lives. ... My job isn’t political per se, although some of the issues that we deal with here are certainly political. So yeah, I think we definitely talk about both of our jobs.
Bing: And what’s great being with Meredith is that even though she’s not doing a political job anymore, she knows the players, she knows the lingo, and that makes communication very easy because we both speak the same language when it comes to politics and I think that makes for a healthy relationship.

What’s your favorite way to escape?
Ballew: We definitely are both big travel aficionados and like to get away as much as possible, schedules permitting.
Bing: And right now as we’re expecting a baby, we have lots of groundwork that we have to do before the baby is born.

Would you want your kids to go into politics?
Ballew: I would think with parents who are as politically interested as we are, it would be difficult for her to avoid a life that isn’t related somehow to politics, whether it just be on a personal interest level or professionally. But we would certainly support any career that she chose.

—DW

Valerie Vazquez
Director of Communications and Public Affairs,
New York City Board of Elections
Joel Rivera
City Council member (D-Bronx), Council majority leader
married for: 7 months

How did you meet?
Vazquez: I was in Albany getting an award. I was the student government president at Queens College. He was newly elected…he gave an empowering speech, saying if I can run, you can too and said, ‘If you have any questions, feel free to call.’ Apparently he then noticed that there was one person not writing the number. I didn’t have a pen. Afterwards we exchanged numbers and talked.
Rivera: There were about 50 students in the place. I noticed her when I first got into the place.

Do you talk about work?
Vazquez: We try to balance it. With HAVA [the Help America Vote Act], when the City Council came up with a resolution about new voting machines I asked him if he was going to give us a hard time when we came before the Council.

Do your professional lives ever overlap?
Rivera: It’s very rare that we see a situation like that.
Vazquez: We feed off each other, so things overlap in the sense that we’re both politically involved.
What’s your favorite way to escape?
Vazquez: Mine would be to go shopping. His, he’s more of a movie buff…He’s more like a history buff, I’m more like ‘The Devil Wears Prada.’

Have you ever disagreed on a political issue?
Rivera: No, not political issues. We don’t talk too much in terms of political ideologies. We don’t have that type of conversation.
Would you want your kids to go into politics?
Rivera: That would be up to them. What happened with me is that I obviously grew up in politics. I saw my father and admired what he was doing. I saw my mother and admired what she was doing. You tend to be involved in what your parents do…but that would really be up to them.

—CCZ

Eliot Engel
U.S. representative, (D-Bronx/Westchester/Rockland)
Patricia Engel
Senior Consultant, Issue Dynamics Inc.
married for: 26 1/2 years

How did you meet?
Eliot Engel: We met at a political club meeting. I was the president. … It was January of 1974. We were having our elections for a slate of officers for the club. I ran for delegate. I found out later she didn’t vote for me because, since I was president, she felt I already had an office. That was the beginning of our meeting. … She became one of my best friends, before we ever dated or started going out with each other. For a number of years, she and I were just very close personal friends. We collaborated politically. We worked together on political campaigns. She worked on my political campaigns when I ran for district leader in ‘76 and Assembly member, ‘77. We got married in 1980.

Do you talk about work?
Pat Engel: More his work than mine. I tend not to discuss what I am doing. It’s proprietary, and keeps everything more separated. I think it’s easier that way.

What’s your favorite way to escape?
Pat Engel: Anything — going out to eat — going to a movie; kids’ activity at school, going to Florida or a beach in summer.
Eliot Engel: It’s very hard to get away from, because my business is politics and government and my hobby is politics and government. We try to involve ourselves with our kids, with our family, which isn’t always easy — it’s hard when you’re both working.

Have you ever disagreed on a political issue?
Pat Engel: Not really. We really almost always agree politically.
Eliot Engel: We tend to see these things pretty much the same way. Maybe some things might be nuanced, but we pretty much agree on a lot of things.

Would you want your kids to go into politics?
Eliot Engel: I wouldn’t encourage them. I wouldn’t discourage them. I wouldn’t push them just because we did it, or I did it.

—EIRD

Darryl Towns
Assembly member (D-Brooklyn)
Karen Boykin-Towns
Director of Worldwide Public Affairs and
Policy at Pfizer, President of Brooklyn
NAACP chapter and member of NAACP
National Board of Directors
married for: 11 1/2 years

How did you meet?
Boykin-Towns: We met in Albany, actually, when I was a staffer for then-Senator David Paterson. I was actually his chief of staff. And Darryl was a newly elected member of the Assembly from Brooklyn.
Towns: That’s when we met, but I actually saw her walking down the street maybe a few months before we actually had the opportunity to meet. I was driving and saw her, and said, ‘Wow,’ you know? ‘That’s a pretty girl.’

Do you talk about work?
Boykin-Towns: [Laughs] Sometimes I get in trouble, though, when I try and give my opinion just too much, because sometimes I can have very strong opinions. Being a former staffer, I have a good sense about this stuff, and so I will find myself engaging like a staffer with him. Then he will tell me sometimes that I don’t work for him, and I will tell him he can’t afford me. It goes something like that every now and then.

What’s your favorite way to escape from it all?
Towns: I think our daughters do a good job of keeping us grounded, because usually they’re very limited in how much professional talk they want to hear. So they help us to get back to things that are important, like tennis lessons and school and, uh—
Boykin-Towns: piano lessons.

Have you ever disagreed on a political issue?
Boykin-Towns: Well I’ll start by saying that I don’t, you know, it’s sort of like staying in your lane, and so when people might ask me about endorsements, my thing is like, I’m not elected to anything. Therefore, I don’t count in that regard.
Towns: If she has an opinion when I make an endorsement that she may not agree with, she keeps it to herself, which is always good.

Would you want your kids to go into politics?
Boykin-Towns: Well, our oldest daughter, if you would ask her, she says she’s going to be president of the United States. It’s so funny, because her grandfather, who you know is the congressman, took her onto the floor of Congress — she usually gets to go about once a year. And just this last year, one of the members said to her, Oh, I’m sure you want to follow in your grandfather’s footsteps. I guess we can expect to see you here. And she bluntly said, No. And he said, You wouldn’t? And she said, No, I’m actually going to be at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. They all just almost had a heart attack.

—BT

Bill Perkins
State Senator (D-Manhattan)
Pamela Perkins
Administrative Manager,
New York City Board of Elections
married for: 8 years

How did you meet?
Bill Perkins: I was active in the neighborhood, and she was active in the neighborhood, ironically on the other side. In the sense of a political campaign, I was running for district leader, she was supporting the incumbent—
Pamela Perkins: My mother was supporting the incumbent, and I was very young.
Bill Perkins: This was in the ‘80s.
Pamela Perkins: Eventually I wound up joining the club. I ran for district leader in 1983, and the rest is kind of history.
Bill Perkins: It was a long period of getting to know you, being involved in different political campaigns.
Pamela Perkins: I appeared in a piece of lit on behalf of the opposition. He never lets me forget that.
Bill Perkins: You know how you win, right? You marry the opposition.

Do you talk about work?
Bill Perkins: First of all, we enjoy the work we do. So it’s not as if that’s all we do, but obviously, since she’s on the administrative side and I’m more the political side, and she actually has been in her own right a leader, not only as a Democratic district leader but she is the first African-American to be vice chair of the state party, during the Cuomo administration. So she has had her own long period of high level activism in politics.
Pamela Perkins: We bounce ideas off each other. Bill has always been, in addition to my best friend and my husband, my political mentor. So we talk a lot. I ask for guidance from him or opinions.
Bill Perkins: She’s the only consultant I don’t pay. And the best consultant.

Do your professional lives ever overlap? Has there ever been a conflict of interest?
Bill Perkins: I don’t know that there’s been a conflict of interest, but they have overlapped. For instance, when I was in the Council, I was the chair of the Government Operations Committee, which oversaw the operations of the Board of Elections, and especially during the period when HAVA [Help America Vote Act] was just coming into being, we had hearings with the New York City Board of Elections. She’s on that side of the table, I’m on the other side of the table.

Would you want your kids to go into politics?
Pamela Perkins: I don’t know so much politics, but I think at some point, in some level that our children have to do some public service, give back to the community, because they’ve been blessed.

—EIRD

Joni Yoswein
President, Yoswein New York
Glenn van Bramer
Creative Director, Yoswein New York
married for: 18 years

How did you meet?
van Bramer: Marty Markowitz’s campaign.
Yoswein: 1985.
van Bramer: Joni was helping run the campaign, and I was hired to do the literature and do the speeches. It really was ‘like’ at first sight. The first year of knowing each other we would just have lunch a lot.

Do you talk about work?
van Bramer: We always have coffee and talk about our day. You can’t separate business and home life one hundred percent. But we never argue about work at home.
Yoswein: And we’ve never tried to. Part of which is because we’ve created this very boutique firm where we like what we do every day.

What’s your favorite way to escape from it all?
van Bramer: Ice fishing.
Yoswein: We have a log cabin in the Adirondacks. It is unbelievable. People don’t get it.
van Bramer: You don’t catch much. But that’s not the point.
Yoswein: It took me three years, I caught my first perch.
van Bramer: I had it mounted.

Have you ever disagreed on a political issue?
Yoswein: No. Probably part of the attraction is that philosophically Glenn and I are very similar.
van Bramer: Before I met Joni I had been active politically. She was active politically. As a matter of fact, the only campaign that we were on different sides on was the Bobby Kennedy/McCarthy campaign. She was 13 years old. 1968. I was working for Bobby Kennedy.
Yoswein: My brother was a big Eugene McCarthy guy. He was 16.

Your son, Jamie van Bramer, is a vice president at the firm. Did you encourage him to go into politics?
van Bramer: Jamie chose this on his own. We’re very proud that he decided to work with Joni and I, particularly with Joni. I think that there’s something that’s very rewarding about working with public policy. I did it on and off my whole life. I worked in Congress. I was a county Democratic leader...
van Bramer: I was active for a number of years, and was happy when Jamie decided to follow me into that. The other kids have their own interests.

—AH