House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer say they would celebrate the nomination of Rep. Deb Haaland to serve as the interior secretary next year under incoming President Joe Biden.
But Haaland would become the third House Democrat to leave Congress for the Biden administration, and her departure would temporarily shrink the perilously slim Democratic majority by yet another vote. The incoming Biden team has already tapped Rep. Cedric Richmond, a Louisiana Democrat, to serve as a senior adviser, and Marcia Fudge, an Illinois Democrat, for Housing and Urban Development secretary.
The Democrats are facing a majority of 222 lawmakers in January after Republicans flipped more than a dozen seats in the November election. Democrats would have only a few seats to spare for any vote that lacked GOP support, which is likely to include many key Democratic policy bills.
Democratic leaders are nonetheless praising news that Biden seeks to nominate Haaland.
“I think she would be an excellent, if the administration chooses her, secretary of interior,” Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, said Wednesday. “I think she would be very historic and very appropriate.”
If nominated and confirmed by the Senate, Haaland would be the first Native American to serve in the post.
Pelosi issued a statement Wednesday praising Haaland’s qualifications for the top post at the Interior Department.
“Congresswoman Deb Haaland is one of the most respected and one of the best Members of Congress I have served with,” Pelosi, a California Democrat, said. “I am so proud that, as one of the first Native American women to have served in Congress, she serves as Chair of the Natural Resources Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands. Congresswoman Haaland knows the territory, and if she is the President-elect’s choice for Interior Secretary, then he will have made an excellent choice.”
Haaland, like Richmond and Fudge, represents a district Democrats are likely to hold in a special election.
Haaland won reelection to New Mexico’s 1st District with more than 58% of the vote, defeating Republican Michelle Garcia Holmes by more than 16 points.
But Democrats will have to deal with the three empty seats until special elections are scheduled and held, which could take months.
Earlier this month, Hoyer told reporters he warned the incoming Biden administration against plucking Democrats from their narrowing majority.
“I made the case to the administration early on that I wanted them to be very careful in terms of the members that they appointed from the Congress given the closeness of our majority,” Hoyer said.
On Wednesday, Hoyer denied trying to block the Biden team from nominating any individual House Democrats for a key role.
“What I said shortly after the election, and what I continue to believe,” Hoyer said, “was that the margin was very close, and I thought it would be difficult if, in fact, members of the Congress were selected to go into the administration.”
The Biden administration has not made an announcement about Haaland, but she is widely expected to be the incoming president’s pick for interior secretary.
“Any assertion that I have spoken to the administration about any one of the candidates is incorrect,” Hoyer said. “False. Made-up.”
Lawmakers tapped by the Biden administration won’t have to resign their seats until they begin working for the administration or are sworn into office.
The trio of House Democrats that now appears headed to the White House will be on hand Jan. 5, when the House reconvenes for the 117th session and votes to elect a speaker.
The presumed winner, Pelosi, must secure 218 votes and cannot afford to lose but a handful of her own Democrats.
In an interview this week, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, called for new leadership in both the House and the Senate but gave no indication she or other Democrats would vote against Pelosi, who announced last month that the next Congress would be her last serving as speaker.
