Sunday Read: Support grows for Julie Su to be named to Biden's Cabinet

Julie Su is being considered as Joe Biden's Labor Secretary.

Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) members of Congress and community activists see Julie Su, California's Secretary of Labor and Workforce Development, as their best bet to place an Asian American on Joe Biden's Cabinet as Labor Secretary.  

With each new Cabinet nomination offered by Joe Biden disappointment, frustration, and rumblings of anger, is spreading among Asian American politicians and community activists.

Even with Indian American Kamala Harris as his Vice President-elect, that is not enough to satisfy AAPI political activists whose voters played key roles in swinging states for Biden. the President-elect and his transition team may think Harris presence in the Cabinet gives them an excuse not to name another AAPI at the Secretary level.

"Asian American leaders express pride in Harris’s historic election, but they also chafe at the idea that her presence might give the transition team a pass on naming other AAPIs to Cabinet positions," the Washington Post notes.

The nominations of Neera Tanden as director of the Office of Management and Budget, and Katherine Tai as his Trade Representative, if approved would give AAPI a presence among his advisers but are considered as second-tier advisors compared to the Cabinet Secretaries.

Biden's Cabinet could be the most diverse in history with the first Native American as a Cabinet Secretary, first Latino homeland security chief, first openly gay Secretary and first African American leading the Dept. of Defense.

Biden broadened the diversity of his Cabinet-to-be Friday by naming New Mexico's Rep. Deb Haaland, the first Native American to be named to a Cabinet, as Secretary for the Department of the Interior, the agency which oversees tribal lands and public land.

“Our Cabinet does not just have one 'first' or just two of these firsts, but eight precedent-busting appointments,” Biden said when he introduced Haaland.

As of Saturday, (Dec. 19), Biden has nominated three African Americans and two Latinos as Secretaries and one Native American as Secretaries. There are only five Secretary positions unfilled: Labor, Education, Commerce, Small Business and Attorney General.

For weeks, members of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus have been calling on Biden to nominate an AAPI Cabinet Secretary. As more cabinet nominees are announced, they fear that this could be the first time in over two decades that there will not be a single AAPI Secretary serving in a presidential Cabinet.

“As both a woman of color and the daughter of immigrants, Secretary Su would bring a diversity of thought and experience to the Cabinet," CAPAC said in a statement.

"She has dedicated her career to the advancement of workers’ rights, fair labor practices, and advancing equity and opportunities for all workers, including the most vulnerable who are often overlooked. Her background spearheading statewide efforts to combat wage theft and worker retaliation, oversee both worker compensation and unemployment insurance, and protect the health and safety of working Americans make her supremely qualified to help steer our nation as we work to recover from the global COVID-19 pandemic."

With just a handful of appointments left, time is running short and lobbying is growing more intense.

"Including an AAPI at this highest level of government, as Presidents Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Trump have done, is a recognition of the AAPI community’s impact and contributions to our nation," Chu, who chairs the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC), said in a statement.

"I believe that Julie Su, with her wealth of experience overseeing the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency, would make an excellent Secretary of Labor. Dominic Ng, CEO of East West Bank, a former United Way Chair and Board Member of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, would be an outstanding Commerce Secretary," said outspoken Rep. Ted Lieu, D-CA. "Ms. Su and Mr. Ng are just some examples of the imminently qualified AAPI candidates for these roles."

“Secretary Su has exemplified her fervent commitment to tirelessly fighting for justice on behalf of the poor, the disenfranchised, and the vulnerable,” Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) wrote in a letter to Biden, signed by 14 other members of Congress, earlier this week.

Rep. Grace Meng (D-N.Y.) tweeted Wednesday. "Zero #AAPI Cabinet Secretaries in his administration would be a disappointment for Asian Americans & Pacific Islanders."

Politico quotes Shekar Narasimhan, chair of the AAPI Victory Fund, a super PAC that endorsed Biden early: "She's a woman, she's AAPI, she's incredibly highly qualified, she has the support of unions in California and she has done yeoman's work in the labor movement. Would you not want to have that person sitting there tomorrow morning?"

A perceived drawback  -- which can also be argued as a positive -- for Su is that she has not worked with Biden previously when he was a U.S. Senator or when he was Obama's Vice President. Biden's selections, thus far, appear to lean towards naming friends and old hands of Washington politics to his inner circle. But the lack of Beltway experience has also been a chief criticism of Biden's picks so far, from the more progressive wing of the Democratic Party, who have also expressed concern about those who have been nominated.

Su, the daughter of Chinese immigrants, was awarded a MacArthur Foundation “Genius” grant in 2001 for her work as a civil rights and workers’ advocate.

Su's work at the Asian Pacific American Legal Center in winning a suit for underpaid Thai-American garment workers gave her national praise from labor unions.

As California's Labor Secretary, Su helped roll out efforts to retrain workers whose jobs are quickly being replaced by robots, an issue brought up by Presidential candidate Andrew Yang and adopted by Biden.

With experts acknowledging the critical role of the AAPI electorate in swing states last Nov. 3, the Democratic Party and AAPI community groups are focusing their attention on the Georgia runoff vote on Jan. 5 that give the Democrats a chance to win two Senate seats and control of the Senate with a one-vote majority.

In the world of politics, a Cabinet appointment is seen by AAPI leaders as a necessary payback for driving up AAPI voting rolls to record numbers followed by an aggressive get-out-the-vote drives which were particularly effective in turning Georgia blue.

“President-Elect Biden promised to build an inclusive government that reflects the full diversity of our nation and that must include AAPIs. For over two decades, there has always been at least one AAPI Cabinet Secretary under both Democratic and Republican administrations," continued the CAPAC statement.

EDITOR'S NOTE: A word of caution, this is news sprinkled with opinion. Readers are encouraged to seek multiple news sources to formulate their own positions.