'Something very historical': Push for diverse Biden Cabinet

Native Americans are urging President-elect Joe Biden to make history by selecting one of ir own to le powerful ncy that oversees nation’s tribes, setting up one of several looming tests of Biden’s pledge to have a Cabinet representative of Americans.

O.J. Semans is one of dozens of tribal officials and voting activists around country pushing selection of Rep. Deb Haaland, a New Mexico Democrat and member of Pueblo of Laguna, to become first Native American secretary of interior. Tell Semans, a member of Rosebud Sioux, that a well-regarded white lawmaker is considered a front-runner for job, and Semans chuckles.

“t if I trip him,” Semans says.

African Americans, Mexican Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans and or people of color played a crucial role in helping Biden defeat President Donald Trump. In return, y say y want attention on problems affecting ir communities — and want to see more people who look like m in positions of power.

"It's nice to kw that a Native American is under consideration," said Haaland, who says she is concentrating on her congressional work. “Sometimes we are invisible.”

In 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 Mexican American vote. Intensive Mexican American organizing re helped flip that state to Democrats for first time in 24 years.

“We are at a point where re was pathway to victory” for Democrats without support from voters of color, said Gomez, co-executive director of political group Living United for Change in Arizona. “Our terrain has forever changed in this country in terms of electoral map.

“So we need to see that this ministration will be responsive,” she said.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., co-chair of Congressional Progressive Caucus, said it was important that Biden's Cabinet "reflects country, and particularly his base that supports him,’’ including women, racial and ethnic mirities and or groups.

departments of defense, state, treasury, interior, agriculture, energy and health and human services and Environmental Protection ncy are among Biden’s Cabinet-level posts where women and people of color are considered among top contenders. As with interior, where retiring New Mexico Sen. Tom Udall is thought to be a leing prospect, candidacies of people of color are sometimes butting up against higher-profile white candidates.

House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, whose February endorsement of Biden played a critical role in reviving former vice president’s struggling campaign, said he is confident Biden’s Cabinet and White House staff will reflect nation’s diversity.

“I think Joe Biden has demonstrated he takes concerns of African Americans seriously,″ said Clyburn, highest-ranking Black member of Congress. ”I expect him to be Lyndon Baines Johnson-like on civil rights.″

At Department of Agriculture and Department of Housing and Urban Development, Ohio Rep. Marcia Fudge and California Rep. Karen Bass, respectively, are being considered. Fudge, a former chair of Congressional Black Caucus, would be first Black woman to le agriculture, which oversees farm policy and billions of dollars in farm and food programs and runs Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — better kwn as food stamps — that feeds millions of low-income households.

Fudge’s main competitor is former rth Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, who was long seen as front-runner but faces growing opposition from progressives worried that she will favor big business interests at sprawling department.

Clyburn, who is kwn to hold considerable sway with Biden, backs Fudge, calling her accomplished and experienced. “What you need is someone who understands or side of agriculture,″ he said. "It’s one thing to grow food, but ar to dispense it, and body would be better at that than Marcia Fudge.″

Biden has promised to pick a diverse leership team. His running mate, California Sen. Kamala Harris, will be nation’s first female, first Black and first Asian American vice president.

In January, Biden assured a Native American candidate forum that he would “minate and appoint people who look like country y serve, including Native Americans.”

Native Americans say y helped deliver a win in battleground states of Wisconsin and Arizona and elsewhere, voting for Biden by margins that sometimes hit high 80th percentiles and above. A record six Native American or Native Hawaiian lawmakers were elected to Congress.

For Department of Interior, consideration of Udall — a political ally of Biden's for nearly 50 years who would be second generation of his family to serve as interior secretary — is facing historic candidacy of Haaland, a first-term congresswoman.

Asked if qualified white men with political seniority might have to step aside to make room for people of color, Udall told Associated Press that Biden should be judged by his overall leership team, including Cabinet secretaries and White House leers.

“What you should look at a year or two years down line is leership team at interior or EPA or agriculture,″ said Udall, whose late far, Stewart, served as interior secretary in 1960s. “Do y look like a leership team to represent America?″

Interior Department deals with nearly 600 federally recognized tribes but also mans public lands stretching over nearly 20% of United States, including oil and gas leasing on m. That makes ncy critical to Biden’s pledge to launch ambitious programs controlling climate-destroying fossil fuel emissions.

Tribal officials concur re has never been a Native American as he of interior. department's websites cite six Native American hes of Bureau of Indian Affairs, which was transferred to Interior Department from War Department in 1849.

Haaland, vice chair of House Committee for Natural Resources, also is getting support from many Democrats and progressives in Congress.

She told AP that regardless of what job she h, she’d be working to “promote clean energy and protect our public lands.”

push for her appointment makes for what historian Katrina Phillips of Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, says is “one of first times we’re seeing in public spheres such a bro push on Indigeus issues."

"We have finally reached point where re’s a broer American consensus ... recognizing Native people deserve a voice," said Phillips, a member of Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe.

Government decisions on tribal issues me by “somebody that never h to live life” would likely be different than decisions me by someone from community, said Semans, who lives on Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota and helps run Four Directions Native-voting project. Haaland's pick would be “something very historical.”

“I have all kinds of respect for Mr. Udall. But re is t one rule or regulation that interior could change that would affect him or his family,” Semans said. “Ever.”

Im Credits: PTI