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WASHINGTON: Native Americans are urging President-elect Joe Biden to make historical past by choosing considered one of their very own to guide the highly effective company that oversees the nations tribes, establishing considered one of a number of looming checks of Bidens pledge to have a Cabinet consultant of Americans.
O.J. Semans is considered one of dozens of tribal officers and voting activists across the nation pushing collection of Rep. Deb Haaland, a New Mexico Democrat and member of the Pueblo of Laguna, to turn into the primary Native American secretary of inside. Tell Semans, a member of the Rosebud Sioux, {that a} well-regarded white lawmaker is taken into account a front-runner for the job, and Semans chuckles.
Not if I journey him, Semans says.
African Americans, Mexican Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans and different folks of coloration performed a vital position in serving to Biden defeat President Donald Trump. In return, they are saying they need consideration on issues affecting their communities and need to see extra individuals who seem like them in positions of energy.
“It’s nice to know that a Native American is under consideration,” mentioned Haaland, who says she is concentrating on her congressional work. Sometimes we’re invisible.
In Arizona, Alejandra Gomez was considered one of a military of activists who strapped on face masks and plastic face shields in 100-plus-degree warmth 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 primary time in 24 years.
We are at some extent the place there was no pathway to victory for Democrats with out assist from voters of coloration, mentioned Gomez, co-executive director of the political group Living United for Change in Arizona. Our terrain has without end modified on this nation by way of the electoral map.
So we have to see that this administration might be responsive, she mentioned.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, mentioned it was vital that Biden’s Cabinet “reflects the country, and particularly his base that supports him, including women, racial and ethnic minorities and other groups.
The departments of defense, state, treasury, interior, agriculture, energy and health and human services and the Environmental Protection Agency are among Bidens 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.
House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, whose February endorsement of Biden played a critical role in reviving the former vice presidents struggling campaign, said he is confident Bidens Cabinet and White House staff will reflect the nations diversity.
I think Joe Biden has demonstrated he takes the concerns of African Americans seriously, said Clyburn, the highest-ranking Black member of Congress. I expect him to be Lyndon Baines Johnson-like on civil rights.
At 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 better known as food stamps that feeds millions of low-income households.
Fudges 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 will favor big business interests at the sprawling department.
Clyburn, who is known to hold considerable sway with Biden, backs Fudge, calling her accomplished and experienced. What you need is someone who understands the other side of agriculture, he said. “Its one thing to grow food, but another to dispense it, and nobody would be better at that than Marcia Fudge.
Biden has promised to pick a diverse leadership team. His running mate, California Sen. Kamala Harris, will be the nations first female, first Black and first Asian American vice president.
In January, Biden assured a Native American candidate forum that he would nominate and appoint people who look like the country they serve, including Native Americans.
Native 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.
For the Department of Interior, consideration of Udall a political ally of Biden’s for nearly 50 years who would be the second generation of his family to serve as interior secretary is facing the 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 The Associated Press that Biden should be judged by his overall leadership team, including Cabinet secretaries and White House leaders.
What you should look at a year or two years down the line is the leadership team at interior or EPA or agriculture, said Udall, whose late father, Stewart, served as interior secretary in the 1960s. Do they look like a leadership team to represent America?
The 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 Bidens pledge to launch ambitious programs controlling climate-destroying fossil fuel emissions.
Tribal officials concur there has never been a Native American as head of interior. The department’s 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.
Haaland, vice chair of the House Committee for Natural Resources, also is getting support from many Democrats and progressives in Congress.
She told the AP that regardless of what job she had, shed be working to promote clean energy and protect our public lands.
The push for her appointment makes for what historian Katrina Phillips of Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, says is one of the first times were seeing in public spheres such a broad push on Indigenous issues.”
“We have finally reached the point where theres a broader American consensus … recognizing Native people deserve a voice,” mentioned Phillips, a member of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe.
Government selections on tribal points made by any person that by no means needed to dwell the life would possible be totally different than selections made by somebody from the neighborhood, mentioned Semans, who lives on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota and helps run the Four Directions Native-voting undertaking. Haaland’s decide could be one thing very historic.
I’ve every kind of respect for Mr. Udall. But there may be not one rule or regulation that inside might change that will have an effect on him or his household, Semans mentioned. Ever.
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Knickmeyer reported from Oklahoma City. Follow Knickmeyer on Twitter at @knickmeyerellen and Daly at @MatthewDalyWDC.
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