President-elect Joe Biden has picked California Attorney General Xavier Becerra as his nominee for secretary of health and human services, the New York Times reported on Sunday, ending a politically delicate search that brought complaints about a lack of Latinos in the incoming cabinet.
Becerra, a former congressman, will lead the health agency as it faces an unprecedented situation to handle a resurgence of the coronavirus — including record infections and a daily death toll that has exceeded 2,000 in recent days — and prepares for a mammoth effort to vaccinate Americans against the virus.
More than 281,000 Americans have died from the COVID-19 disease, according to the Reuters tally.
Becerra’s selection comes as President-elect Joe Biden is under increasing pressure from the Latino community to diversify his cabinet, including complaints from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus about the lack of Latinos.
The 62-year-old served 12 terms in Congress, from 1993 to 2017, representing Los Angeles, before becoming the attorney general of his home state in 2017. He is the first Latino to hold that office, and while in Congress he was the first Latino to serve as a member of the Ways and Means Committee.
Last week, Biden named some top members of his health team and is expected to roll out the full team this week, as per Reuters reports. He has asked Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a member of President Donald Trump’s coronavirus task force, to stay on as chief medical adviser.
He also has named Jeff Zients, an economic adviser touted for his managerial skills, as a coronavirus “czar” to oversee an unprecedented operation to distribute hundreds of millions of doses of a new vaccine, coordinating efforts across multiple federal agencies.
Biden also named Vivek Murthy, a physician and former surgeon general who has gained prominence in recent months as co-chairman of Biden’s advisory board dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, to return for a second go-around as surgeon general.