Who Is Chuck Schumer's Wife? All About Iris Weinshall
Chuck Schumer and his wife, Iris Weinshall, have dedicated their lives to public service.
The United States senator and the Democratic senate minority leader has spent his career serving his country in politics. Likewise, Weinshall has held different roles across New York City, including as the chief operating officer of the New York Public Library.
Both Brooklyn natives, Schumer and Weinshall met in the late 1970s when he was an assemblyman, and she was a lobbyist. They married in 1980 and welcomed two children: their daughters Alison and Jessica Schumer. In recent years, Jessica and Alison have welcomed kids of their own, making Schumer and Weinshall three-time grandparents.
Today, Schumer and Weinshall continue to pursue their careers, and Schumer has said that Weinshall's 'wit and grit' are an 'inspiration' to him every day, he wrote in a 2018 Facebook post.
So who is Chuck Schumer's wife? Here's everything to know about Iris Weinshall and her relationship with the United States senator.
In the 1970s, Schumer met Weinshall when he was 24 and a New York state assemblyman while she was 21 and working as a lobbyist for the Citizens Union in Albany.
The two crossed paths when they attended a meeting for the Mid-Bay Independent Democrats in Midwood, Brooklyn, where Weinshall was attempting to garner endorsement for one of the group's causes.
'I had waited to speak and he showed up and he came over to me and said, 'You don't mind if I go ahead of you, because I have to go to some other meetings,' ' Weinshall told Crain's New York Business in 2016.
She continued, 'And I said, 'Yes, I do mind.' But then he charmed me, so I let him do it.'
Schumer and Weinshall wed on Sept. 21, 1980.
The same year Schumer was first elected to Congress, and two weeks after he won the Democratic Party nomination for his district, he and Weinshall married, according to a newspaper announcement of their marriage.
At the time of their wedding, Weinshall was serving as the assistant vice president of the Urban Development Corporation.
Weinshall has held various public office positions throughout her career, including deputy commissioner for the New York City Department of Citywide Administrative Services and the New York City Department of Environmental Protection.
From 2000 to 2007, Weinshall served as commissioner of the city's Department of Transportation before moving to the City University of New York (CUNY) as vice chancellor of facilities planning, management and construction. (She previously graduated from CUNY's Brooklyn College and earned a master's degree in public administration from New York University.)
Weinshall held her role with CUNY until September 2014, when she began her tenure as the chief operating officer of the New York Public Library — a position that she still holds today.
At the NYPL, she oversees all operational departments of the library across its 92 locations, its construction operations and its $1 billion endowment, according to her bio on the NYPL website.
Schumer and Weinshall welcomed their older daughter, Jessica, in 1984 and their younger daughter, Alison, in 1989.
After being raised in Brooklyn, Schumer and Weinshall's daughters did not follow them into public service and instead pursued careers in the tech industry — Jessica with Amazon and Alison with Facebook, per the New York Post.
Jessica met her husband, Michael Shapiro, in 2011 when they both worked as policy advisors at the White House for the National Economic Council, but didn't begin dating until three years later, per The New York Times. The pair married on Apr. 17, 2016.
In November 2018, Jessica and Shapiro welcomed a son, Noah Melvin Schumer-Shapiro — named in honor of Weinshall's father, Schumer wrote in a Facebook post announcing the birth. In June 2022, they welcomed their second child, daughter Eleanor Alys, named after Schumer's mother.
Alison met her wife, Elizabeth Weiland, in 2015 after being introduced online, and they married on Nov. 18, 2018, per The New York Times. Schumer became a grandfather for a third time in February 2023, when Alison and Weiland welcomed their son, Henry, Schumer shared in a post on Instagram.
Schumer and Weinshall show up for each other in the professional sense — attending events, ceremonies and career milestones together.
In 1998, after Schumer defeated Republican incumbent Alphonse D'Amato in the New York senatorial race, Weinshall and his daughters were there to support him — standing beside Schumer after he gave his acceptance speech and flashing thumbs-ups to the cameras.
She has also attended all of Schumer's swearing-in ceremonies, including his first in 1999; when he was sworn into the Senate by Vice President Joe Biden in 2017; and when he was sworn in by Vice President Kamala Harris in 2023.
Nearly two decades, while still serving in the senate, Weinshall and their children attended his first speech as Democratic minority leader in 2017.
As for Weinshall's career, Schumer is often in attendance at the New York Public Library's annual Library Lions gala, even giving a speech at the November 2024 event and also two years prior.
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