According to wikipedia, she was not on any Labor Committee in the House. She doesn't seem to be a huge labor person. She is a woman and Hispanic, so there's that. Maybe opposed NAFTA? Opposed the guest worker program?
She's got good progressive credentials re:labor and trade (among other things) according to the wikipedia, but yeah, she doesn't seem to have been anywhere near a labor or trade committee during her House tenure, nor can I recall her being a big leader on labor issues.
Not knowing much about her, I do have to say she makes some fine progressive pro-labor, pro-working woman, pro-fair trade arguments on her fine congressional web page. Much more info than most, a lot more than Lahood, and a at least is willing to put some positions out there (link below).
On the other hand, her stance on minimum wage could be a little closer (a lot closer) to a living wage.
Ok, this is starting to make a little sense to me. If your goal is to return DoL to it's original mission after 8 years of being gutted, she appears to be a good choice for the job, and I have no doubt that after Elaine Chao, Labor is in need of an effective administrator.
On top of that, she was vice chair of the Progressive Caucus, so she's obviously got some political chops. But I'm beginning to think that Obama's labor plan might be to have Solis administratively get DoL back on track and that Biden might be the pro-labor cabinet policy heavy/legislative arm-twister.
I agree, she looks to be the admin task master with 10 years of political gaming in her pocket. She also has some "on the ground organizing" experience which plays to those Obama community organizer chops. Some people I know over at BLS sent me an email with a photo of her marching with Andy Stern prior to her election to congress 10 years ago. She has also been a strong advocate of immigrant farm labor rights and the organizing efforts of Cesar Chavez and others.
In the end I think she represents someone with enough progressive answers to make labor happy and a light enough political policy resume to keep the right less irate, at least less irate than Andy Stern.
After 8 years of Chao we have no place to go but up and it is going to take a lot of work to get there.
I'm a day late and a dollar short here, but - she's definitely not the political heavyweight some unions were hoping for. Still, I don't think this administration had the goal of making the head of DOL a strong cabinet position, and frankly I don't know that we would have gained as much from this position as the political capital we would have been perceived to have spent to get it. On the federal level, I think I'm more concerned about good NLRB appointments.
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According to wikipedia, she was not on any Labor Committee in the House. She doesn't seem to be a huge labor person. She is a woman and Hispanic, so there's that. Maybe opposed NAFTA? Opposed the guest worker program?
She's got good progressive credentials re:labor and trade (among other things) according to the wikipedia, but yeah, she doesn't seem to have been anywhere near a labor or trade committee during her House tenure, nor can I recall her being a big leader on labor issues.
Not knowing much about her, I do have to say she makes some fine progressive pro-labor, pro-working woman, pro-fair trade arguments on her fine congressional web page. Much more info than most, a lot more than Lahood, and a at least is willing to put some positions out there (link below).
On the other hand, her stance on minimum wage could be a little closer (a lot closer) to a living wage.
http://solis.house.gov/issues/labor.shtml
Ok, this is starting to make a little sense to me. If your goal is to return DoL to it's original mission after 8 years of being gutted, she appears to be a good choice for the job, and I have no doubt that after Elaine Chao, Labor is in need of an effective administrator.
On top of that, she was vice chair of the Progressive Caucus, so she's obviously got some political chops. But I'm beginning to think that Obama's labor plan might be to have Solis administratively get DoL back on track and that Biden might be the pro-labor cabinet policy heavy/legislative arm-twister.
I agree, she looks to be the admin task master with 10 years of political gaming in her pocket. She also has some "on the ground organizing" experience which plays to those Obama community organizer chops. Some people I know over at BLS sent me an email with a photo of her marching with Andy Stern prior to her election to congress 10 years ago. She has also been a strong advocate of immigrant farm labor rights and the organizing efforts of Cesar Chavez and others.
In the end I think she represents someone with enough progressive answers to make labor happy and a light enough political policy resume to keep the right less irate, at least less irate than Andy Stern.
After 8 years of Chao we have no place to go but up and it is going to take a lot of work to get there.
I'm a day late and a dollar short here, but - she's definitely not the political heavyweight some unions were hoping for. Still, I don't think this administration had the goal of making the head of DOL a strong cabinet position, and frankly I don't know that we would have gained as much from this position as the political capital we would have been perceived to have spent to get it. On the federal level, I think I'm more concerned about good NLRB appointments.
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