{"id":90612,"date":"2020-11-22T07:28:29","date_gmt":"2020-11-22T12:28:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/?p=90612"},"modified":"2020-11-22T07:28:29","modified_gmt":"2020-11-22T12:28:29","slug":"auto-draft-331","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/2020\/11\/22\/auto-draft-331\/","title":{"rendered":"US Minorities Push for Diverse Biden Cabinet"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"VOA \u2014 WASHINGTON – Native Americans are urging President-elect Joe Biden to make history by selecting one of their own to lead the powerful agency that oversees the nation\u2019s tribes, setting up one of several looming tests of Biden\u2019s pledge to have a Cabinet representative of Americans.
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\nO.J. Semans is one of dozens of tribal officials and voting activists around the country pushing selection of Rep. Deb Haaland, a New Mexico Democrat and member of the Pueblo of Laguna, to become the first Native American secretary of interior. Tell Semans, a member of the Rosebud Sioux, that a well-regarded white lawmaker is considered a front-runner for the job, and Semans chuckles.
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\n\u201cNot if I trip him,\u201d Semans says.
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\nAfrican Americans, Mexican Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans and other people of color played a crucial role in helping Biden defeat President Donald Trump. In return, they say they want attention on problems affecting their communities \u2014 and want to see more people who look like them in positions of power.
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\n\u201cIt\u2019s nice to know that a Native American is under consideration,\u201d said Haaland, who says she is concentrating on her congressional work. \u201cSometimes we are invisible.\u201d
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\nIn Arizona, Alejandra Gomez was one of an army of activists who strapped on face masks and plastic face shields in 100-plus-degree heat to go door-to-door to get out the Mexican American vote. Intensive Mexican American organizing there helped flip that state to Democrats for the first time in 24 years.
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\n\u201cWe are at a point where there was no pathway to victory\u201d for Democrats without support from voters of color, said Gomez, co-executive director of the political group Living United for Change in Arizona. \u201cOur terrain has forever changed in this country in terms of the electoral map. \u00a0
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\n\u201cSo we need to see that this administration will be responsive,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

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\"FILE<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>
FILE – Congresswoman Deb Haaland, Native American Caucus co-chair, joined at right by Congresswoman Judy Chu, chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, March 5, 2020.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said it was important that Biden\u2019s Cabinet \u201creflects the country, and particularly his base that supports him,\u201d including women, racial and ethnic minorities and other groups.
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\nThe departments of defense, state, treasury, interior, agriculture, energy and health and human services and the Environmental Protection Agency are among Biden\u2019s Cabinet-level posts where women and people of color are considered among the top contenders. As with interior, where retiring New Mexico Sen. Tom Udall is thought to be a leading prospect, the candidacies of people of color are sometimes butting up against higher-profile white candidates. \u00a0
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\nHouse Majority Whip Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, whose February endorsement of Biden played a critical role in reviving the former vice president\u2019s struggling campaign, said he is confident Biden\u2019s Cabinet and White House staff will reflect the nation\u2019s diversity.
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\n\u201cI think Joe Biden has demonstrated he takes the concerns of African Americans seriously,\u201d said Clyburn, the highest-ranking Black member of Congress. \u201cI expect him to be Lyndon Baines Johnson-like on civil rights.\u201d
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\nAt the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Ohio Rep. Marcia Fudge and California Rep. Karen Bass, respectively, are being considered. Fudge, a former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, would be the first Black woman to lead agriculture, which oversees farm policy and billions of dollars in farm and food programs and runs the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program \u2014 better known as food stamps \u2014 that feeds millions of low-income households.
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\nFudge\u2019s main competitor is former North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, who was long seen as the front-runner but faces growing opposition from progressives worried that she would favor big business interests at the sprawling department.
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\nClyburn, who is known to hold considerable sway with Biden, backs Fudge, calling her accomplished and experienced. \u201cWhat you need is someone who understands the other side of agriculture,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s one thing to grow food, but another to dispense it, and nobody would be better at that than Marcia Fudge.\u2033<\/p>\n

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\"FILE<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>
FILE – African American supporters of president-elect Joe Biden celebrate on Black Lives Matter Plaza across from the White House in Washington, Nov. 7, 2020, after Biden was projected the winner of the 2020 presidential election.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Biden has promised to pick a diverse leadership team. His running mate, California Sen. Kamala Harris, will be the nation\u2019s first female, first Black and first Asian American vice president.
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\nIn January, Biden assured a Native American candidate forum that he would \u201cnominate and appoint people who look like the country they serve, including Native Americans.\u201d
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\nNative Americans say they helped deliver a win in the battleground states of Wisconsin and Arizona and elsewhere, voting for Biden by margins that sometimes hit the high 80th percentiles and above. A record six Native American or Native Hawaiian lawmakers were elected to Congress.
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\nFor the Department of Interior, consideration of Udall \u2014 a political ally of Biden\u2019s for nearly 50 years who would be the second generation of his family to serve as interior secretary \u2014 is facing the historic candidacy of Haaland, a first-term congresswoman.
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\nAsked if qualified white men with political seniority might have to step aside to make room for people of color, Udall told The Associated Press that Biden should be judged by his overall leadership team, including Cabinet secretaries and White House leaders.
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\n\u201cWhat you should look at a year or two years down the line is the leadership team at interior or EPA or agriculture,\u201d said Udall, whose late father, Stewart, served as interior secretary in the 1960s. \u201cDo they look like a leadership team to represent America?\u2033 \u00a0
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\nThe Interior Department deals with nearly 600 federally recognized tribes but also manages public lands stretching over nearly 20% of the United States, including oil and gas leasing on them. That makes the agency critical to Biden\u2019s pledge to launch ambitious programs controlling climate-destroying fossil fuel emissions.
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\nTribal officials concur there has never been a Native American as head of interior. The department\u2019s websites cite six Native American heads of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which was transferred to the Interior Department from the War Department in 1849. \u00a0
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\nHaaland, vice chair of the House Committee for Natural Resources, also is getting support from many Democrats and progressives in Congress. \u00a0
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\nShe told the AP that regardless of what job she had, she\u2019d be working to \u201cpromote clean energy and protect our public lands.\u201d
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\nThe push for her appointment makes for what historian Katrina Phillips of Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, says is \u201cone of the first times we\u2019re seeing in public spheres such a broad push on Indigenous issues.\u201d \u00a0
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\n\u201cWe have finally reached the point where there\u2019s a broader American consensus … recognizing Native people deserve a voice,\u201d said Phillips, a member of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe.
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\nGovernment decisions on tribal issues made by \u201csomebody that never had to live the life\u201d would likely be different than decisions made by someone from the community, said Semans, who lives on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota and helps run the Four Directions Native-voting project. Haaland\u2019s pick would be \u201csomething very historical.\u201d
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\n\u201cI have all kinds of respect for Mr. Udall. But there is not one rule or regulation that interior could change that would affect him or his family,\u201d Semans said. \u201cEver.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VOA \u2014 WASHINGTON – Native Americans are urging President-elect Joe Biden to make history by selecting one of their own to lead the powerful agency that oversees the nation\u2019s tribes, setting up one of several looming tests of Biden\u2019s pledge to have a Cabinet representative of Americans. \u00a0 O.J. Semans is one of dozens of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":90613,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latests"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"en","enabled_languages":["fa","en"],"languages":{"fa":{"title":true,"content":false,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90612"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90615,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90612\/revisions\/90615"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}