President-Elect Biden and Vice President-Elect Harris select Members of Their Domestic Policy Team

President-Elect Biden and Vice President-Elect Harris have officially announced their selections to fill several Domestic Policy Positions.

They are:

• Representative Marcia Fudge for Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.
• Ambassador Susan Rice for Head of the Domestic Policy Council.
• Katherine Tai as the United States Trade Representative.
• Denis McDonough as the Secretary of Veterans Affairs.
• Former Iowa Governor and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack as Agriculture Secretary.

Please click here to access these nominees' biographies.

Four of the five positions will require Senate Confirmation. Ambassador Rice will not because the head of the Domestic Policy Council is part of White House Staff.

If confirmed, Ms. Tai, a person well versed in trade policy, will become the first Asian American and woman of color to serve as the United States Trade Representative.

Representative Fudge, a former Mayor of Warrensville Heights, Ohio, would be if confirmed, the second Black woman to helm the Housing and Urban Development Development.

This will be former Governor Vilsack's second stint as the Agriculture Secretary. He served eight years in that position during the Obama/Biden Administration.

With these latest selections, the makeup of the Biden/Harris Administration is:

White Women: 14

Black Women: 10

Latino Women: 3

Asian Women: 5

White Men: 12

Black Men: 3

Latino Men: 4

Asian Men: 1

According to reporting by the New York Times, there has been some concern that Representative Fudge should have been put at the Agriculture Department instead of Tom Vilsack. Ms. Fudge is currently the chair of the House Committee on Agriculture Subcommittee on Nutrition, Oversight, and Department Operations and serves on the Agriculture Committee. Mr. Vilsack, a person who once ran for President, does have the benefit of having already served eight years as Agriculture Secretary.

Washington Post reporters noted that some veterans groups were surprised with the nomination of former White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough to head the Veterans Administration. Apparently, his name was not on an initial list of candidates for the position. While Joseph Chenelly, the Executive Director of American Veterans questioned whether McDonough could run a large organization (I guess being the Chief of Staff at the White House from September 2010 to February 2013 does not count,) former Veterans Affairs Secretary Shulkin for both Obama and Trump vouched for him.

Perhaps the most puzzling of today's selections was Ambassador Rice. A stellar and talented public servant, it is a little mystifying how she earned the position of the head of the Domestic Policy Council given her government service background, as Politico reported, has been exclusively in International Affairs. While there is no doubt she will probably master her new portfolio after familiarizing herself with the intricacies of domestic policy, it is perhaps the one selection so far that will generate the most questions.

Major Positions still to be announced:

• Attorney General.
• Central Intelligence Agency Director.
• Secretary of Education.
• Secretary of Energy.
• Secretary of the Interior.
• Environmental Protection Agency.
• Secretary of Labor.
• Secretary of Commerce.