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Senior Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett on Sunday predicted more minorities and women would be tapped for positions in the president’s Cabinet.
“His Cabinet, when he's finished — and he's far from finished — will have diversity, including women, including people of color,” said Jarrett in an interview with CNN.
“He believes he makes his best decisions when he is surrounded by people who have different perspectives and give him their best ideas,” she continued. “And so, one picture does not speak a thousand words, in this instance. I spent a lot of time in the Oval Office, and I'm in there with a great number of women whom he listens to, and whose counsel and advice he trusts greatly.”The White House has faced scrutiny over an alleged lack of diversity among President Obama’s top advisers, prompted by a New York Times report earlier this month questioning the “all-male look” of Obama’s inner circle. A photo accompanying the report showed Obama consulting a number of white men.
Those questions have intensified with Obama’s senior-most Cabinet nominations, including former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) for Defense secretary, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) for secretary of State and Chief of Staff Jack Lew for Treasury secretary.
Those nominations have come amid a number of high-profile second-term exits of female Cabinet members, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis.
In a press conference last week, Obama rejected charges that he had neglected diversity, saying that he was “proud that in the first four years, we had as diverse, if not a more diverse, White House and a Cabinet than any in history.”
Obama said his critics should “wait until they've seen all my appointments, who is in the White House staff and who is in my Cabinet, before they rush to judgment."
On Sunday, Jarrett said that the president had a strong track record of appointing women to key positions in his administration.
“The president has been surrounded by strong women throughout his entire life. Raised by a single mom, lived for a while with his grandmother, who was a great role model for him. Obviously, married to a very competent wife, and his first Cabinet reflected the diversity of our country,” said Jarrett. “He put women in charge of key initiatives, such as Nancy Ann DeParle, his deputy chief of staff, who helped craft the Affordable Care Act, and now Kathleen Sebelius is implementing it.”
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This afternoon, the Rhode Island House Judiciary Committee will hold its first hearing on a bill to legalize same-sex marriage. Coalitions have already formed on both sides of the issue with Rhode Islanders United for Marriage supporting equality and the National Organization for Marriage’s Rhode Island for Marriage opposing it. It seems conservatives will not be holding back in their assault on the rights of same-sex couples, as demonstrated by the testimony Alliance Defending Freedom attorney Kellie Fiedorek will offer at today’s meeting:
FIEDOREK: Religious freedom belongs to everyone, not just a handful of people. The government cannot limit constitutionally protected religious liberties in a way that’s foreign to our Constitution. This bill fails to ensure that those liberties of every Rhode Island citizen will be respected. The First Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom for all Americans is not limited to the four walls of a church.
The OneNewsNow article highlighting Fiedorek’s remarks clarify her intention that justices, judges, court commissioners, business owners, and counselors should all have protections to not recognize same-sex marriages.
Unfortunately, this is a realistic problem for the Rhode Island legislation. When lawmakers attempted to pass marriage equality in 2011, they ended up settling on a civil unions bill with some of the most extreme “religious exemptions” of any similar bill in the country. According to that law, administrators at religion-run schools, hospitals, and businesses can simply refuse to treat civil unions as valid if doing so violates their religious beliefs, essentially making legal recognition of civil unions pointless. Combined with the access and recognition of same-sex marriages from neighboring states, it’s unsurprising that civil unions have been “a complete failure” in the state, with less than 100 couples bothering to get one after the law had been in effect over a year.
Gov. Lincoln Chafee (I), who is eager for the new legislation to pass, issued an executive order last May requiring all state agencies to recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere. The kind of exemptions ADF is demanding could essentially roll back protections married same-sex couples already enjoy. Fortunately, there is little reason for lawmakers to cave to such inordinate invitations to discriminate, as 56 percent of voters support marriage equality.
A new poll released Monday from The Hill shows that Americans are expecting stronger gun laws as a response to the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary. In a survey of voters, only 19 percent said that the tragedy made them want looser gun laws. Forty seven percent said it made them want stronger laws. Of those surveyed, 11 percent said that gun laws in the US were too strict. Forty nine percent said they should be stronger. Those numbers split along party lines: Around 75 percent of Democrats believe that gun laws are too weak, but only 24 percent of Republicans agreed.
