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“We are very, very concerned as a community, as a Latino community,” said Texas representative Vicente Gonzalez, who called last week to appoint at least five Latinos to cabinet-level positions.
Advocates and officials in the United States of America and the Pacific Islands warn the Biden administration, in writing, it will be “deeply disappointing if more AAPIs are not appointed” to Cabinet positions. They are increasingly convinced that the president-elect will not match President Barack Obama’s total of three Asian Americans in his first cabinet.
Meanwhile, the Congressional Black Caucus is urging Biden to choose a black defense secretary and increase the number of African Americans heading departments across the board.
Together, the reviews highlight the challenges Biden faces in meeting the expectations of a historically diverse Cabinet. And it highlights growing demands for equal representation after a presidential election in which Asian Americans made a difference in Georgia, Latinos boosted Biden in Arizona, and black voters propelled him to the nomination. and final victory.
But appeasing everyone can be an almost impossible task, especially given the zero-sum reality of the Cabinet jockey and the limited number of top positions.
Latin American lawmakers and outside groups, for example, are pushing New Mexico housekeeper Michelle Lujan Grisham for Secretary of Health and Human Services – but patting her on former U.S. surgeon general Vivek Murthy, who is Indian -American, could anger US advocacy groups of Asian descent.
“It’s no secret that if you look at the number of people who have been nominated … we don’t see too many Asian Americans, do we?” said Bel Leong-Hong, chairman of the AAPI caucus of the Democratic National Committee.
Those pushing the transition team say there is still time for Biden to achieve his lofty diversity goals. But some Democrats are pessimistic after seeing the first rounds of staff picks.
Biden’s core team in the White House will be predominantly white, including his chief of staff, director of communications, press secretary, director of legislative affairs and one of his top economic advisers. And two of the Cabinet’s so-called “Big Four” – at the top of the State, Treasury, Justice and Defense departments – have already been occupied by white candidates.
“A real way for Biden to write history would be to nominate a person of color for one or more of these ‘Big Four’, and now they’re down to two,” said Janet Murguía, president of UnidosUS and a former adviser to President Bill Clinton. “So there will be close scrutiny from the Black and Latino community for the two remaining jobs – DoD and Justice – and rightly so.
A Black House lawmaker, who requested anonymity to speak more freely as Biden fills positions, expressed it more candidly. “He needs to step it up,” lawmaker said, noting that the selection of Kamala Harris as vice president does not give Biden an excuse to appoint fewer African Americans to head key departments.
Biden’s transition team says the president-elect will have a diverse administration when all is said and done. “His success in finding diverse voices to develop and implement his political vision to address our country’s most difficult challenges will be clear when our full roster of nominations and candidates is complete,” said a transition official from Biden-Harris in a statement.
It is true that, as the head of transition pointed out, Biden has “announced several historic and diverse appointments to the White House and cabinet appointments.” For example, he appointed an all-female senior communications team, as well as the first woman of color to head the Bureau of Management and Budget and the first woman appointed as Secretary of the Treasury.
But in 2020, the bar for diversity has been raised well beyond the seven women and 10 non-white civil servants in President Barack Obama’s first cabinet.
Senior AAPI officials point to the huge increase in the turnout of Asian American voters in the 2020 election – including in crucial battlefield states he won, such as Georgia and the United States. ‘Arizona – as one of the reasons they should be well represented in administration. Early and absent voting for AAPI voters has increased by nearly 300% in battlefield states this year, according to Democratic data company Catalist.
Transition Biden announced Monday that Neera Tanden, a Native American woman, will be appointed to head the Office of Management and Budget. But some AAPI officials said they were still concerned that Biden might hit the target set by Obama, who appointed three AAPI candidates for Cabinet positions early in his term.
“We just want to make sure that the Biden administration – and we passed it on from day one – has diverse representation, and that diversity includes AAPIs,” said Rep. Grace Meng (DN.Y.), vice-president of the DNC. “It’s not always fully understood.”
The influential Hispanic congressional caucus has also mounted an active lobbying campaign.
In phone calls and letters, lawmakers pointed out that transition agency review teams were made up of around 11% Latino, and their COVID-19 advisory committee was around 15% Latino, each being less than about 20% of the US population that are Latinos.
And while they applauded the nomination of Cuban American Alejandro Mayorkas as head of Homeland Security – the first immigrant and the first Latino to hold the post, if confirmed – it doesn’t come close to representing the spread of Latinos across the country, they say.
“When we talk about diversity, we also have to talk about diversity within the Hispanic community,” said California Democratic Representative Raul Ruiz. “The vast majority of Hispanics in the United States are Americans of Mexican descent, so it would be important and useful to have them represented in nominations. The Puerto Rican, Cuban-American, and Dominican experiences are also important and should be reflected as well.
Gonzalez, the Democrat from Texas, said he had warned Democrats against mounting support for Republicans among Mexican American communities in South Texas and other battlefield states.
“When Republicans come to our districts saying, ‘What have the Democrats done for you?’ And we have a Democratic president with low or low representation of Latinos in his cabinet and his government, that’s a tough answer, ”Gonzalez said. “I don’t want to have to defend this.”
In addition to Lujan Grisham, Latin American lawmakers are backing either DNC Chairman Tom Perez or California Attorney General Xavier Becerra to lead the Department of Justice. Ruiz’s name has also been launched by some members of the Hispanic caucus as a potential addition to a Biden administration, given his medical history as a doctor.
Members of the Congressional Black Caucus lobbied Biden’s transition team at the individual level, according to several members. Many are drawing inspiration from Clyburn, who is pushing for Democratic Ohio Rep. Marcia Fudge to be chosen as the first black woman secretary of agriculture.
Representative Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) Said he was watching closely who Biden appoints to lead housing and urban development, pointing out that Democrats have not appointed a black man to head the HUD since 1965 , when the department was created by the president. Lyndon Johnson. And he echoed other CBC members who say “former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson’s name must be in the mix” for the Defense Secretary.
“I’m not ready to panic,” Cleaver said of representation in the administration, adding that members see Biden as someone who understands their demands and the “delicacy” of keeping a diverse party happy. .
“The philosophy of those of us who have been in the civil rights movement is that even though they’re friends, you know, you don’t let go of your expressions of anticipation,” Cleaver said. “We expect he will do it. The right thing.”
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