Kirk: Lawmakers' wife splits for D.C.

Kimberly Vertolli-Kirk — the wife of GOP Rep. Mark Steven Kirk has decided to move back to Washington from Highland Park.

It’s a tale of a two-career couple, laid out in the current issue of the glitzy “Capitol File Magazine.”

Kirk, a Navy Reserve officer, met his future wife, an Annapolis graduate, when they were thrown together by chance one day when they were both on naval intelligence duty at the Pentagon.

Kirk was involved in his first campaign for the North Suburban 10th District seat when they were engaged.

Vertolli-Kirk told Capitol File that she made a “radical move” to the northern suburbs.

“After her husband won the seat,” the article said, she “agreed to live in their home district for a time.”

Vertolli-Kirk went on to graduate from Northwestern’s law school with a focus in international human rights. She never sold her Alexandria, Va., home — Rep. Kirk stays there when the House is at work — and moved for good back to Virginia last winter. That’s because, the article said, Washington provides the best chance of landing work in the field of national security.

The magazine said that “while her husband sits on the right, Vertolli-Kirk leans left.” Vertolli-Kirk told the magazine, “If the NRCC [National Republican Congressional Committee, the GOP House political operation] knew how different we were politically, they’d probably want him to find a new wife!”

She will keep voting in the 10th District, a Kirk spokesman said.