Literally less than 24 hours after this blog pressed the question "Where's the secretary of labor?", Obama has named one. And a really good one, seemingly. California Congresswoman Hilda Solis, who has a terrific pro-union record. Take it from Harold Meyerson, one of America's great labor journalists, who wrote the below at Tapped:
In 1996, when she was a back-bencher (and the first Latina) in the California State Senate, Hilda Solis did something that no other political figure I known of had done before, or has done since: She took money out of her own political account to fund a social justice campaign....Solis dipped into her own campaign treasury and came up with the money to fund the signature-gatherers to put a minimum wage hike initiative on the California ballot. The signature gatherers gathered the signatures, the measure was placed on the ballot, it passed handily in the next election, and California's low-wage janitors and gardeners and fry and taco cooks, and millions like them, got a significant raise.
But there's more!:
And in 2000, she did something liberals always talk about doing and almost never do: she challenged an incumbent Democratic congressman with a piss-poor record in that Spring's Democratic primary, and defeated him soundly. Marty Martinez, a 9-term incumbent seeking his 10th, had voted for NAFTA, opposed gun controls and abortion rights, and backed the extension of a freeway into a residential area -- managing to estrange labor, enviros, feminists and liberals of all descriptions. Still, Democrats virtually never run against incumbents, from the left or from anyplace. But Solis, with the encouragement of L.A. County AFL-CIO chieftain Miguel Contreras, did just that. She not only won, but defeated Matinez by a whopping 69 percent to 31 percent margin.
Greg Sargent at TPM got SEIU president Andy Stern's take:
"It's extraordinary," SEIU president Andy Stern said in an interview with us a few moments ago. "On every issue that's important to us, she has stood up for an America where everyone's hard work is valued and rewarded."
Some labor officials had initially thought that an elder statesman type with stature would be best in the gig. But Stern said he thinks the choice of Solis by Obama, who has a keen appreciation of the power of biography, wanted someone with a bio steeped in labor and has a kind of dedication and passion could make her a kind of labor star in a cabinet that is stocked with a fair amount of star power already.
"As opposed to some candidate [for whom] this would have been just a job, for Hilda Solis it's the fulfillment of a life-long dream," Stern said, adding that that Solis was one of the names that labor officials had privately communicated as acceptable to them in talks with the transition. "Her father was a teamster. She is the American dream."
Finally, you knew Obama was on the right track when the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute put out this statement:
Her apparent closeness to organized labor should also be cause for concern. Labor unions, which she should be tasked with overseeing, are her biggest campaign contributors by far. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, during the last election cycle, her top four donors -- and 14 of her top 21 donors -- are labor unions. Her relationships with union leaders are a legitimate topic, which Senators should address in her confirmation hearing.
Fair enough, they are. But somehow I doubt CEI raised the red flag over the many Bush appointments who came from corporations and business.
So it just goes to show: Obama will do things liberals don't like so much, and he will do things liberals adore. Most liberals are entirely capable of understanding this, and of being angry about one particular thing like Warren but not losing their bearings. This is life. People get upset sometimes. Life goes on.
