Buttigieg’s selection is in line with Biden’s promise to name a cabinet that reflects the diversity of the country.
US President-elect Joe Biden has assigned Pete Buttigieg, the straightforwardly gay previous former mayor, as his transportation secretary. Whenever affirmed, he will be the main LGBTQ individual to hold a cabinet post in the nation.
Biden has likewise chosen to name Jennifer Granholm, the former governor of Michigan, to head the department of energy, which is depended with the upkeep of the nation’s nuclear arsenal. Also, Gina McCarthy, previous top of the Environment Protection Agency under President Barack Obama, will be Biden’s domestic climate policy chief.
Buttigieg and Granholm, who had not been authoritatively declared at this point, should be affirmed by the US Senate.
Biden said in an explanation he was selecting Buttigieg transportation secretary since “this position stands at the nexus of so many of the interlocking challenges and opportunities ahead of us. Jobs, infrastructure, equity, and climate all come together at the DOT, the site of some of our most ambitious plans to build back better”.
“This is a moment of tremendous opportunity—to create jobs, meet the climate challenge, and enhance equity for all,” Buttigieg said in a tweet. “I’m honored that the President-elect has asked me to serve our nation as secretary of transportation.”
Buttigieg’s determination is in accordance with Biden’s promise to name a cabinet that reflects the diversity of the country. He will join Neera Tanden, the primary Indian American named bureau secretary to cabinet secretary to head the budget department; Janet Yellen, the first woman treasury secretary; Lloyd Austin, the first African American nominated for defence secretary; Katherine Tai, the first Taiwanese American named US Trade Representative; and Xavier Becerra and Alejandro Mayorkas, the first Latinos to head the departments of health and homeland security respectively. What’s more, obviously, Kamala Harris, the first black, woman, Asian American and Indian American vice-president.
“When confirmed, Pete will soon make history as the first Senate-confirmed, openly LGBTQ member of the cabinet — a milestone worth celebrating,” said Alphonso David, president of Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBTQ advocacy in the United States, in a tweet.
The former mayor of South Bend in Indiana state, who is married to Chasten Buttigieg, shot into national prominence as a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, going up against stalwarts Biden, a former vice-president then, and Senators Harris, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. He became the first openly gay person to win a presidential primary/caucus, picking up Iowa.
Buttigieg was among the bunch of candidates who left the race and endorsed Biden after the former vice-president won the South Carolina primary, which put him on the path to the nomination and, eventually, the White House.
Buttigieg is a previous military insight official who served in Afghanistan in 2014. He moved on from Harvard and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University.
