DETROIT – After Michigan played such a key role in his election many are expecting President-Elect Joe Biden to tap Michiganders to be part of the new administration. Several names of Michigan Democrats have already been floated just days before Biden is set to name more picks.
Congressman Andy Levin (D-MI) has the strongest support so far for the job of Secretary of Labor. The United Auto Workers and Communications Workers unions have thrown support behind the sophomore representative earlier this month.
Representative Elissa Slotkin is also reportedly on the shortlist for director of the CIA. While there are several more likely contenders, Slotkin’s resume is tough to ignore. She worked as an analyst at the CIA and was an aide in the Obama White House. She currently sits on the Homeland Security and armed services committees, where she serves on the intelligence subcommittees for both.
There are also pushes for Biden to break from expected centrist picks hoping to have more progressive voices in the room after many of their votes helped propel him to victory. Among those names, Detroit Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, whom progressives want to replace another Detroit native, Ben Carson, as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Tlaib has been an advocate for ending eviction orders and water shut-offs since the beginning of the pandemic and is a forceful voice on the left.
Tlaib has butted heads with the centrist Democrats in the days since the election vowing to push the party to the left. Biden has responded to calls for more progressive cabinet members by saying they already have “significant representation.”
For weeks Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s name has been in the water supply for some kind of cabinet post but early this month she said despite her position as a campaign chair, she definitively says she won’t be leaving the governor’s mansion for Washington.
Completed Wisconsin recount confirms Biden’s win over Trump
Wisconsin finished a recount of its presidential results on Sunday, confirming Democrat Joe Biden’s victory over President Donald Trump in the key battleground state. Trump vowed to challenge the outcome in court even before the recount concluded.
Dane County was the second and last county to finish its recount, reporting a 45-vote gain for Trump. Milwaukee County, the state’s other big and overwhelmingly liberal county targeted in a recount that Trump paid $3 million for, reported its results Friday, a 132-vote gain for Biden.