Sait Serkan Gurbuz/AP Photo
Biden and Xavier Becerra in 2016
For all the confident pronouncements on the shape of the Biden administration, it’s worth pointing out that very few appointees have been selected, and the overall picture is very much in flux. Biden has been hemmed in by his parallel commitments to satisfy competing factions of the Democratic Party, as well as the persistent pressure to have the cabinet reflect racial and gender diversity. (It’s clear that diversity has begun to obscure actual policy beliefs within the personnel choices.)
In addition, there’s a reluctance from the transition team to poach anyone from the House or Senate, because of the thin margins in those chambers. This has upended a lot of plans and seems to have been used as an excuse to avoid difficult choices. Plus, we know that Biden values experience above practically everything else, and if you combine that with putting Congress off limits, you’re left with a strong bias toward former members of the Obama and Clinton administrations. (California’s current government could also be picked clean, with its attorney general, labor secretary, agriculture secretary, and environmental chief all named or in position to be named to the cabinet.)
Still, that has not held in every case, as progressive pressure has fended off some of the worst options. Here is a primer on where things stand with the cabinet and other major positions thus far, based on a combination of the Prospect’s own reporting and published speculation from elsewhere.
Health and Human Services: The New York Times scooped last night that Xavier Becerra, the California attorney general, would take the HHS position. Becerra served on the health subcommittee of the Ways and Means Committee while in the House, and has publicly endorsed a single-payer health care system for decades.
Most recently, Becerra pursued a groundbreaking antitrust case against Sutter Health, a Northern California hospital chain that forced insurance companies to cover all of its facilities, allowing it to keep prices high, confident that no insurer can drop it from the network. Inpatient prices were 70 percent higher in the northern part of the state, thanks to Sutter Health’s dominance. The lawsuit settled in 2019 for $575 million, though Sutter tried to weasel out of it, citing hard times during the pandemic. Becerra’s understanding of the damaging role of hospital consolidation and progressive instincts on health issues earned him praise from advocates I’ve spoken with.
This was a case of successful progressive pushback, led by the organizations that have mounted fights for months on personnel.
Becerra was not the first choice; New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham fell out of favor with the transition team, and Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo had the job if she wanted it. She took herself out of the running, and while the cover story is that she didn’t want to pull her kids out of school (but she would for the commerce secretary position?), it’s clear that she deferred amid critical scrutiny of her middling record on choice and shielding of nursing home corporations from liability during the pandemic. This was a case of successful progressive pushback, led by the organizations that have mounted fights for months on personnel alongside digital media, like us and The Daily Poster.
Justice: With Becerra out, that’s one Latino contender off the table for attorney general. The names that have been publicly floated include former acting AG Sally Yates, now a BigLaw partner at King & Spalding; Lisa Monaco, a Justice Department veteran who held national security posts in the Obama administration; Doug Jones, former Alabama senator who as a U.S. attorney under Bill Clinton successfully prosecuted the 1963 Birmingham church bombing case; Tom Perez, known as chair of the Democratic National Committee but who ran the civil rights division of the Justice Department under Obama, and later the Labor Department; and Deval Patrick, briefly a presidential candidate after two terms as Massachusetts governor.
Bain Capital ties would be tough to surmount for Patrick, and Perez has a less-than-stellar reputation from the DNC (though his civil rights division credentials are generally solid). The other three are white, and they would join a white secretary of state and treasury secretary. Jones could be the most confirmable, given that he served for four years in the Senate. Yates is a fertile target in various Trump-era conspiracy theories. Monaco, who was a staffer on Biden’s Senate Judiciary Committee, is a good bet, but she could also slide into national-security positions.
Defense: The other “Big Four” cabinet position was thought to be a lock for Michèle Flournoy, but progressive pushback for her perceived hawkish views and position at WestExec Advisors led to wavering from the Biden camp. However, the lack of diversity in top cabinet slots has driven the hesitancy on Flournoy as much as anything.
The other two options are former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and retired Army Gen. Lloyd Austin. Both are Black. Flournoy has been savaged for being too close to the military-industrial complex; Johnson sits on the board of Lockheed Martin and Austin on the board of Raytheon. Austin is listed as a partner with Pine Island Capital, the private equity firm tied to WestExec, where Flournoy is a principal. There’s not much difference on conflicts of interest between these three, and probably not much on policy either. But there are concerns about nominating a retired military officer to a position traditionally held by a civilian. After the era of Trump and his generals, it might send the wrong message.
Andrew Harnik/AP Photo
President-elect Joe Biden last week in Wilmington
Agriculture: This is a fascinating battle. At first glance, the decision between Cleveland area Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-OH) and former North Dakota senator Heidi Heitkamp is about the aforementioned diversity issue, but it goes much deeper. It gets at the core of who USDA is supposed to work for: the poor and needy who rely on USDA’s nutrition-assistance programs every day, or corporate agribusiness. Family-farm interests have urged Biden to reject corporate Ag advisers (of which Heitkamp is prominent) for months, and advocacy for Fudge from Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC) forced Biden to consider it. But Fudge would also violate the vow to steer away from sitting members of Congress. Which for Big Ag is quite convenient.
Suddenly new names have emerged: former Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan, California Agriculture Secretary Karen Ross, former head of the United Farm Workers Arturo Rodriguez, and Obama’s Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. It was Vilsack who was pushing Heitkamp for the position; he is now a dairy industry lobbyist. Re-appointing Vilsack would look like a punt from the Fudge/Heitkamp corporate Ag showdown, but it would be a firm show of support for the status quo. Merrigan was Vilsack’s deputy; Ross was his chief of staff. Rodriguez would represent a middle ground.
The informal congressional ban is robbing the Biden team of potential talent.
Interior: This is another situation where the most natural choice is also a member of Congress. Rep. Deb Haaland (D-NM) would be the first Native American Interior Secretary, and a fairly progressive one to boot. But the informal congressional ban is robbing the Biden team of potential talent. There’s another progressive in the mix: Tom Udall, the retiring Senator from New Mexico whose father ran the agency under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. But Jimmy Tobias reported for the Prospect today that Michael Connor, a member of the Taos Pueblo and former deputy interior secretary, is under consideration. He’s now a partner at WilmerHale, a law and lobbying firm that has defended several anti-environmental clients. This could be a situation where diversity masks a concerning selection.
Labor: Unions continue to be split between Boston Mayor Marty Walsh and Rep. Andy Levin (D-MI). According to my sources, Levin had more support in an initial temperature-taking of labor leaders. But his role in the House probably knocks him out. There hasn’t been much talk lately about Seth Harris, a former acting labor secretary under Obama who devised the framework that Uber and Lyft used to deny drivers employee rights in California’s Prop 22.
Axios reported last night that Patrick Gaspard, a top official at the powerful East Coast local SEIU 1199 for many years, just stepped down as president of the Open Society Foundation. Gaspard, who is Black, served several positions in the Obama administration. It’s unclear who progressives would prefer between Gaspard and Walsh. Julie Su, California’s labor secretary, would be a bold choice with lots of support, but the state is mired in a damaging unemployment fraud scandal, and regardless of whether it’s Su’s fault, it’s her agency, and the debacle might make her politically radioactive.
HUD: Very little attention has been focused on this agency (did you know that Ben Carson is still there?), but it’s likely that Biden will be the first Democrat to pick an African American HUD Secretary, which is pretty striking. Former Jacksonville mayor Alvin Brown (who worked at HUD in the Clinton administration) is on the shortlist, along with Maurice Jones, top HUD deputy during the Obama years.
Jones is currently CEO of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation, a community development financial institution that works on affordable housing. Robert Rubin has been its chairman of the board for twenty years, which is an enormous red flag. LISC has a long history of financing charter schools as well. There’s plenty more to be said about Jones, but Biden’s team could quiet that talk by turning to other options, like Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, or National Low-Income Housing Coalition CEO Diane Yentel.
USTR/SEC: As Bob Kuttner reported Friday, Capitol Hill staffer Katherine Tai is likely to become U.S. trade representative, but might be undermined by other tech-friendly deputies. Gary Gensler, the reform-minded former head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, is said to have coveted that USTR slot. But there’s a landing place at the Securities and Exchange Commission, a powerful perch from which Gensler could continue his efforts at taming Wall Street. Allison Herren Lee, one of two Democrats currently on the commission, could also get the chair.
CFPB: Thanks to the Supreme Court, Biden could fire Kathy Kraninger and install his own director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. If Democrats don’t capture the Senate, however, it will be very hard to confirm a nominee; Republicans loathe CFPB and don’t really want it to exist. There’s an interesting potential work-around. Under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, Biden can name anyone previously confirmed by the Senate to serve as an acting agency head for a limited period. One Senate-confirmed official would be perfect for CFPB: Rohit Chopra, currently a commissioner on the Federal Trade Commission. He could serve as CFPB director in an acting capacity while staying on at FTC, the way Mick Mulvaney did when he was acting CFPB director and White House budget director. Chopra was the student loan ombudsman at CFPB and has a sterling consumer protection record.
Other: It may be hard to keep Ernest Moniz out of another tour at the Department of Energy, despite concern from climate advocates; I suspect this is because of Moniz’s role in the Iran nuclear deal. Raimondo could land at Commerce, and Chopra would be a good choice there as well, especially as an emergency acting secretary, as questions about the Census (part of Commerce) will dominate the early days of the administration. Former National Education Association president Lily Eskelen García has gotten more buzz than anyone for education secretary. Another California cabinet-level secretary, head of the state Air Resources Board Mary Nichols, is getting a lot of support for EPA. As I expected, the “Rahm Emanuel to Transportation” talk was mostly being made by Rahm Emanuel; I don’t quite know who gets the nod, however. I have no news about Veterans Affairs. Jaime Harrison is almost certainly the next chair of the DNC.
