By Al Kamen
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Latino political advocates, citing the importance of Latino votes in President-elect Barack Obama's victory, are pressing him to appoint at least two and as many as four Latinos to his administration's 20 Cabinet-level positions.
Although Latino voters eluded Obama in his primary race against Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), they mobilized big time for him in the general election. Two-thirds of Latino voters nationwide went for Obama, helping him win the battleground states of Colorado, Florida, Nevada and New Mexico.
"I'm not one to promote quotas," said Janet Murguia, president of the National Council of La Raza and a senior aide in Bill Clinton's White House. "But I think it would be difficult to see a Cabinet at this historic moment in the country that wouldn't reflect diversity. So it's our expectation that we would see a diverse Cabinet and sub-Cabinet."
Topping the wish list of many advocates is New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D), who is said to be interested in being secretary of state. Richardson, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, endorsed Obama shortly after dropping out of the presidential race this spring.
"Richardson has put his name forward, and we think that'd be an historic opportunity for the [Latino] community," said Brent Wilkes, executive director of the League of United Latino American Citizens. "He'd be a tremendous force."
Federico Peña, secretary of transportation and energy in the Clinton administration, serves on Obama's transition committee and could take a job in the new administration.
Several other prominent Latinos are mentioned as potential nominees for labor secretary, including Linda Chavez-Thompson, a longtime AFL-CIO leader and vice chair of the Democratic National Committee; Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa(D); and Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.).
"Latinos are the nation's second-largest population group, they turned out in record numbers, and they're the fastest-growing electorate in the nation," said Rosalind Gold, policy and advocacy director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. "Latinos should be making key policy decisions along a whole range of issues."
Latino advocates are promoting several other candidates for administration positions: Rep. Nydia M. Velázquez (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Committee on Small Businesses, for administrator of the Small Business Administration; Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.) for interior secretary; and Miami Mayor Manny Diaz, a political independent who endorsed Obama, for secretary of homeland security.
Two Latinos could be contenders to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development: Diaz and Saul Ramirez Jr., a deputy HUD secretary under Clinton. And two may be considered for education secretary: Susan Castillo, Oregon's superintendent of public instruction, and Blandina "Bambi" Cárdenas, president of the University of Texas-Pan American.
In a news conference yesterday, transition co-chair John Podesta underscored Obama's commitment to diversity in his Cabinet. "Excellence is the first criteria for all of these people coming into government," Podesta said. "But I think that as long as we keep our eye on the ball . . . we can balance geographical diversity, racial diversity, gender . . . so that we have a Cabinet that reflects the same kind of approach that Senator Obama took in the campaign to bring new people into government."
Shouldn't be too hard for him to match or better the track records of the previous two administrations. When President Clinton took office in 1993, just 30 percent of about 500 Senate-confirmed appointees in his first round of selections were women, 14 percent were black, 6 percent were Latino and 3 percent were Asian American, according to a Brookings Institution study. When President Bush took office in 2001, his initial appointees were 23 percent women, 9 percent black, 8 percent Latino and 7 percent Asian American.
We're hearing there was a momentary pause last week in the exchanges of drafts of a memorandum of understanding between the Bush administration and the Obama team. The memo established procedures for how the transition would work, how much access would be given to the new folks and so forth. The Obama team is said to have wanted some adjustments in wording to the administration draft.
But it was quickly resolved, we were told, when it became evident that the wording used by the Bush team was drawn from the wording of the outgoing Clinton administration proposal during transition negotiations with the incoming Bush team in 2000.
The Obama team was told that the author of the Clinton proposal was then-Chief of Staff John Podesta.
Oh, never mind.
Don't forget to enter the Loop Pick Four contest, to guess who the new president will name as secretary of state, secretary of defense, secretary of the Treasury and attorney general. Bonus question: Guess which members of the opposing party will be in the Cabinet -- in those posts or others.
The top 10 winners -- and you may not even need to guess all four correctly -- will receive our coveted In the Loop T-shirts, plus bragging rights.
As always, entries may be submitted "on background." Send your via e-mail to: LoopPickFour@washpost.com or mail to In the Loop, The Washington Post, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071. You must include a phone number -- home, work or cell -- to be eligible. The deadline for entries is Nov. 17, or the moment Obama fills one of the positions. He's moving quickly, so don't delay!
On the transition front, word is that some of the key transition folks who have been focusing on housing matters include Bruce Katz of the Brookings Institution, who was chief of staff to former housing and urban development secretary Henry Cisneros; Roberta Achtenberg, assistant secretary for fair housing and equal opportunity during Cisneros's tenure; and Xavier Briggs, an associate professor of sociology and urban planning at MIT and former acting assistant secretary at HUD for policy development and research.
While everyone these days is focused on the presidential transition, there's going to be lots of movement on Capitol Hill as well, with lawmakers looking for bigger offices and better committee assignments, and staffers moving to new gigs.
One of the first moves of note involves veteran foreign policy analyst and longtime Senate aide Richard Kessler, most recently at the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, who moves to be staff director for the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
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