Vilsack Emerges as Biden’s Top Candidate to Lead Agriculture Department
WASHINGTON — Former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack has emerged as a leading candidate for secretary of agriculture in the Biden administration, reprising a role he held under President Barack Obama, according to people familiar with the nomination process.
The people said that while Vilsack was favored, President-elect Joe Biden has not yet made a decision. He is also considering Rep. Marcia Fudge of Ohio and former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm.
The Biden team also has considered former Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota. A coalition of progressive groups wrote a public letter to Biden criticizing her as being too close to corporate agriculture interests.
Vilsack served eight years as agriculture secretary under Obama, and in 2016 Hillary Clinton vetted him as a potential vice presidential nominee. He actively campaigned for Biden in rural areas this year and advised the Biden campaign on rural issues.
He currently is president of the U.S. Dairy Export Council.
Biden’s choice of Vilsack, if finalized, would fill the post with a proven emissary to rural America and agricultural interests as Biden stresses his intention to reach out to sections of the country that didn’t support the Democrat’s presidential bid. Rural areas have been among the strongest supporters of President Donald Trump.
But Biden faces strong pressure within his party to diversify his Cabinet with more minorities, women and figures from the party’s progressive wing.
Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, whose endorsement was pivotal to Biden’s win in the early-primary state and eventual nomination, had urged the president-elect to choose Fudge, who would be the first Black woman to lead the department. Clyburn has criticized the Biden team for insufficient representation of African Americans among the first waves of Cabinet nominees announced.
Fudge, a senior member of the House Agriculture Committee who represents a majority-Black Cleveland-area district, has been a fierce critic of Trump administration efforts to cut back on food assistance to the poor, which makes up a large portion of the USDA budget.
Granholm has been a strong supporter of Biden and helped him with debate preparation.
NAACP President Derrick Johnson said that Biden’s selection of Vilsack “would be questionable to say the least and highly concerning.”
Johnson pointed to the 2010 ouster of Shirley Sherrod, then the USDA’s Georgia state director of rural development, in response to an edited video published by conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart.
The clip showed Sherrod, who is Black, telling a local NAACP group she was initially reluctant to help a White farmer save his farm more than two decades ago, before she worked at USDA. The clip left out of the speech, intended to show racial healing, that Sherrod went on to help the farmer save his farm.
Internal emails released later showed Sherrod directly pleading with Vilsack to hear out her side of the story rather than rush to judgment. Obama later apologized for her firing and Vilsack asked her to return.
“Here’s a person who wrongfully terminated an innocent woman who was a civil rights icon in the state of Georgia, Shirley Sherrod, without even giving the opportunity for her to defend herself only to find out that he’d already terminated her,” Johnson said.
He also pointed to Black farmers needing to turn to Congress during the Obama years to resolve lawsuits as another strike against Vilsack.
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