It looks like Governor Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas might be Obama's choice for secretary of health and human services, advisers said Wednesday.
Some good news: Sebelius has been endorsed by Planned Parenthood and consistently voted against anti-abortion legislation. She also refused to take campaign contributions from insurance companies. She has also demonstrated a big commitment to the environmental, which makes me wonder if we'd finally have a Secretary of Health and Human Services who makes the link between our health and our environment in more cutting edge ways: food politics, environmental racism, the link between obesity and class disparity, urban renewal, community gardens etc. etc.
What do you all think?
Related from Firedoglake: Sebelius Wants HHS, But White House Fears Anti-Abortion Backlash from Phill Kline Groupies
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Kathleen Sebelius has been from all I've heard a good ally to reproductive rights in Kansas--which is not the easiest place to be an ally, either. She seems like a good choice.
BUT BY CTHULU I HOPE SHE'S PAID HER FRIGGIN' TAXES.
I'm glad Gov. Sebelius is at the top of the list. I still wish that Obama had chosen her over Biden; she would be a fantastic VP.
Yay for environmental health coming into the forefront! With Obama's election we in the field were thrilled that things like chemicals policy reform might actually be taken seriously for the first time in almost a decade, and now if Sebelius takes the health and human services position, we might get even more momentum going. It is just so hard to get the idea into people's heads that when we pollute our environment, we also pollute our bodies and that having toxic chemicals in our bodies is a huge reason for the monumental increases in rates of cancer, developmental and respitory diseases and obesity since the 1950s.
Hopefully if Sebelius is offered the position she will help to shift the paradigm away from where it is now. Currently, environmental health groups have to work their asses off to prove - without a doubt - that toxic chemicals in our food, cosmetics and cleaning products are bad for our health in order to get them banned. Shouldn't it be the other way around? Shouldn't corporations carry the burden of proving to us that their ingredients are safe before they put them in the products we eat and put on our bodies and in our homes?
We'll have to see what happens, but I'd say the future of the env. health movement is looking brighter every day.
Sebelius said when she was talked about as a VP pick that she wouldn't leave KS. With the budget crisis in KS at the moment, I think it would be hard for her to leave.
She did veto a crazy anti-choice bill last year, though.
She also fought crazy Phil Kline tooth and nail.
This is thrilling for feminist Kansans like myself! I was seriously disappointed that she wasn't chosen for VP. She would have made such an AMAZING contrast to Palin - an articulate, coompetent, popular (two-term!) female governer of a red state? Well, what do you know?
Sebelius will be out next year in any case, and Kansas has a serious minority complex. We need sophisticated representation in Washington. It's a great way to reach out to us, since Democrats usually ignore us or write us off as too backwards to address. Obama's mention of his mother being a "white woman from Kansas" was the most presidential play we've seen since Bob Dole.
I think Kansas is going to start to get a little more play on the national scene - the DNC has even talked of trying to lift Texas up to swing state status within the next few cycles, and I think Kansas is a natural stop on that road - as long as Governor Sibelius projects a national presence while still serving the state. Kansas has a history of radical progressive Populism if you go back to before abortion and The Gay became, for some reason, political issues, and they have potential to reach that point again.
Excuse my ignorance, but what is environmental racism?
"Environmental racism refers to intentional or unintentional racial discrimination in the enforcement of environmental rules and regulations, the intentional or unintentional targeting of minority communities[1] for the siting of polluting industries, or the exclusion of minority groups from public and private boards, commissions, and regulatory bodies" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_racism ).
I'd imagine it would also have to do with, say, the U.S. government choosing to conduct its nuclear bomb test near Native American reservations - supposedly "unpopulated" but of course not really unpopulated - where it harmed Natives' farm animals and contaminated everything. And, earlier, pushing Native Americans onto the crappiest pieces of land in the country and calling them "reservations."
Wow - I think she'd be great. And WTF with the White House being worried about Phill Kline groupies? Can the White House PLEASE stop worrying or caring about batshit crazy conservatives for a moment? It's starting to really piss me off.
Oh, I had completely forgotten about that Phil Kline jackass.
I really hope they don't pass Sebelius over out of fear of some fundie backlash. Fight the flipping battle already and quit kowtowing the very, very loud (but still a minority) forced-birth crowd.
I'm torn because I want my governor in the Obama administration - knowing how fantastic she is and how desperately this entire country needs her. But we need her in Kansas too! She is such a contrast to the rest of the KS government, and once she's gone that's that. The crazies will take over completely. I've heard that Brownback wants to be governor next, God help us all. I'm terrified of that. But Sebelius just plain rules and I looooooooove her!
I'm from Kansas and I love Sebelius but I kind of don't want her in Obama's cabinet. This is a very red state so whoever takes her place will most likely be Republican. Brownback would be very likely and I absolutely dispise him. I once wrote him and letter about my opposition to the Federal Marriage Admendment, and his response was as if I supported it.
Hip Hip Hooraaayyyy!!! Boo Yah babee!!! I was rooting for her as VP, but I'm happy to see her in the Cabinet! I feel bad for KS but God Bless the USA babee!
As great as she would be at HHS (a Health Secretary who actually cares about health! Almost as amazing as the actual scientist in Energy!), I think Kansas needs her more right now. It's the same conflict I felt with the Napolitano appointment - she would have had a really good shot at Senator McCain's seat if she'd stayed on as governor until 2010.
I also want to see Sibelius run for President in 2016, and the leap from the Cabinet to the presidency has historically been less likely than from governor to president, but then again we've seen a couple "historically unlikely" political events go down recently.
No, dammit, no. I was just as opposed to Obama taking her away from Kansas when they were discussing her for VP. We need her here in Kansas. I'm sure there are tons of qualified women who aren't currently making sure my friends and family get paid on time. Pick one of them.