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Our co-founder Stephanie Taylor has a [ [link removed] ]new op-ed in The Nation. It's a
behind-the-scenes look at how our sister organization, the Progressive
Change Institute, has worked to make sure President Biden fills his
administration with some of the most diverse, progressive appointees in
history.
This was a two-year project, and we're thrilled to share it with you.
Read the op-ed here and please share it [ [link removed] ]on Facebook and [ [link removed] ]on Twitter.
Then, [ [link removed] ]give us your feedback and [ [link removed] ]donate to building progressive power
and winning in whole new ways.
-- The PCCC Team ([ [link removed] ]@BoldProgressive)
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STEPHANIE'S OP-ED IN THE NATION:
Behind-the-Scenes: Personnel as Policy in the Biden Administration
That flood of progressive appointments is no accident.
President Biden is filling out his Administration with some of the [ [link removed] ]most
diverse, [ [link removed] ]progressive appointees in history. That is no accident.
Over two years before the 2020 election, progressives started organizing
to make sure we were ready to influence this process, no matter who became
the Democratic nominee. This effort was driven in part by Senator
Elizabeth Warren’s mantra that “[ [link removed] ]personnel is policy” and the growing
recognition that the right personnel have the power to [ [link removed] ]lower
prescription drug prices, [ [link removed] ]modify or forgive student loans, [ [link removed] ]funnel
billions of dollars into green energy, and use other powers vested in the
executive branch to [ [link removed] ]get things done for the American people.
We knew we needed to do two things -- make a case that progressive
appointees were a viable choice and then make it easy for the Biden
Transition team to choose them.
To handle the first task, the Progressive Change Institute (the
organization that I co-founded) researched hundreds of individual
positions to identify what kind of skills and expertise were needed, why
the positions mattered, and what progressives could do in those agencies
and offices if they exercised executive power. We published a [ [link removed] ]90-page
report that was shared widely with the progressive community.
With that research in hand, we turned to our second task. We used
open-source software to build a custom database of over 9,000
administration positions that could be synced with our list of recommended
personnel. Then we reached out to our allies across the movement and asked
them to nominate diverse, competent, credentialed experts with a track
record of results. Potentially most game-changing, our database allowed
groups to endorse each other’s nominations so that the Biden team would
see large pockets of support for specific personnel recommendations.
Over 60 groups ended up collaborating in this database, including racial
justice groups like Color of Change and Liberation in a Generation;
climate leaders like Sunrise and Friends of the Earth; advocacy groups
like Indivisible, MoveOn, and People’s Action; think tanks like Demos and
the Center for Economic and Policy Research; corporate watchdogs like
Public Citizen and Amazon Watch; and agriculture groups ranging from
Family Farm Action to the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association. We
also benefited collectively from the participation of regional groups,
which nominated talented local experts that might have otherwise been
missed by a national effort.
From this process, the Progressive Change Institute developed a list of
[ [link removed] ]over 700 names (all viewable at [ [link removed] ]TransitionNames.com), which we
consider a long-term list of future leadership. We submitted the list to
the Biden transition team with bios, the specific recommended positions,
and the list of organizations that were endorsing each recommendation,
which showed a visible map of the institutional and grassroots support
behind each candidate.
One early challenge we faced was the [ [link removed] ]talking point, driven by big
business, that Biden needed to hire corporate lobbyists in order to meet
his goal of a diverse Administration. We had to make the case otherwise.
We released our own list publicly -- and the press coverage in [ [link removed] ]The New
York Times, [ [link removed] ]Associated Press, [ [link removed] ]ABC News, [ [link removed] ]Politico, and others
helped create a counter-narrative to this argument, showing that it was
possible to hire both diverse and qualified personnel grounded in public
service.
Across the movement, different voices leaned into different areas. The
Revolving Door Project [ [link removed] ]tracked and highlighted problematic potential
appointees like Rahm Emanuel, raising the alarm in the media on a daily
basis and helping to pave the way for key appointments like [ [link removed] ]Janet
Yellen for Treasury Secretary and [ [link removed] ]Ron Klain for Chief of Staff (who
was progressives’ preferred choice among Biden’s inner circle). Native
American activist Julian Noise Bravecat and an alliance of progressive and
indigenous grassroots groups led a powerful and ultimately [ [link removed] ]successful
campaign in support of Deb Haaland’s appointment as Interior Secretary.
Others served critical roles on [ [link removed] ]agency review teams. Throughout the
process, organization and communication were key.
In a sign of the scale and scope of the effort, even members of Congress
started publicly lobbying for under-the-radar appointments. Reps. Jamaal
Bowman and Ayanna Pressley, for example, recently published an [ [link removed] ]op-ed
in support of Mehrsa Baradaran for Comptroller of the Currency, a
relatively obscure-but-critical position in the Treasury Department.
As Biden turned to the sub-Cabinet positions, where we invested most of
our time and effort, we saw a flood of success. Progressives celebrated
the appointments of [ [link removed] ]Rohit Chopra to lead the Consumer Financial
Protection Bureau, [ [link removed] ]Bharat Ramamurti as deputy director at the National
Economic Council, [ [link removed] ]Julie Siegel as deputy chief of staff at the
Treasury Department, [ [link removed] ]Maggie Thomas as chief of staff at the White
House Office of Domestic Climate Policy, and [ [link removed] ]Sasha Baker as head of
strategic planning at the National Security Council. Heather Boushey,
Jared Bernstein, Joelle Gamble, Cecilia Rouse, Michael Linden, and many
others with progressive track records were named to key economic, labor,
and climate positions.
It’s clear that we chose the right year to make this stand. Our movement
is more powerful than ever before, and Biden clearly wants a
[ [link removed] ]relationship with progressives (not to mention a successful
presidency.) Our job was to make it easy for him and his team by putting
in the work and handing over super-qualified and diverse progressives on a
silver platter. While the process isn’t over and we’re certainly [ [link removed] ]not
ecstatic about every one of Biden’s choices, there’s much to celebrate in
many appointments so far.
Personnel is policy. This campaign marks a new moment of sophistication
for progressives, a new understanding of executive power -- and a new way
to win results.
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