Xavier Becerra, a Congressman from Hollywood, is at the least being strongly considered for the post of US Trade Representative and may have already accepted the job. Becerra is in the House leadership as Vice President of the Democratic caucus, and while he voted for NAFTA he has since regretted doing so, and he led the fight against CAFTA and other trade agreements which he felt did not have the proper safeguards, or labor and environmental standards. And channeling my inner David Sirota, the fact that pro-business conservatives are worried about the direction Becerra will take US trade policy confirms that he would be an excellent choice:
And now Business Week reports on some rumblings of opposition from the pro-business and free-trade camp:
Philip Levy, who's now with the conservative American Enterprise Institute, told the mag that the choice is "troubling," arguing that "to oppose Nafta is in many ways to lash out symbolically against trade." A business lobbyist added to the mag that he and his colleagues are "pretty concerned."
Well, I'm sold.
If Obama brushes off the concerns of the American Enterprise Institute (and really, everyone should) and Becerra gets the job, a very safe Democratic seat in the heart of Los Angeles would be up for grabs. Considering the density of the city it's actually a pretty large district (with lots of it in rapidly gentrifying Hollywood), and has a good deal of Latino voters. However, this would be up for grabs in a special election, and the universe of special election voters is probably a smaller Hispanic universe than on a normal Election Day, so I wouldn't say that only a Latino candidate could win here. In fact, LA City Council President Eric Garcetti represents a good portion of the district on the council.
Garcetti would be a progressive leader in the Congress and a major upgrade. Becerra is a member of the Progressive Caucus and generally solid on the issues, but he's not particularly outspoken, and as part of the leadership team, wouldn't stray too much from the party line. On the other hand, Garcetti is a smart, committed young leader, a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford and a graduate of the London School of Economics who has led on so many progressive issues in the city it's hard to even count them all. It would be great to have someone in the Congress with the background of dealing with key urban issues from graffiti to housing to development, while at the same time having led on important national initiatives like clean money, the war in Iraq (the LA City Council was among the first to pass a resolution opposing it) and renewable energy. Garcetti jumped aboard the Barack Obama campaign from almost the very beginning as a California chairperson, so he would be able to tap that network of organizers pretty easily. He would make a fantastic member of Congress, among the best in the nation in my view. (and that's not just because he appeared on Calitics Radio on primary election night!)
Rep. Becerra would get to set trade policy, and Los Angeles would experience no dropoff in leadership. Everybody wins!
UPDATE: In this LA Times article, Sen. Gil Cedillo is also mentioned as a possible candidate. I'm a fan of Cedillo's as well, particularly his leadership on the DREAM Act and his advocacy for comprehensive immigration reform. Garcetti is quoted in the article saying "it was premature to speculate on a possible run but did not rule it out." |
