Former college trustee tapped to head Labor Department
By CC Times, Published January 12, 2009

President-elect Barack Obama has selected Rep. Hilda Solis (D-Calif.), who was first elected to public office as a community college trustee, to serve as his secretary of labor.

Solis, 51, who is known for her efforts in environmental justice and to curb domestic violence, is expected to advocate greater union influence in the workplace and for more "green" jobs.

"I look forward to working with President-elect Obama to reinvest in workforce training, build effective pipelines to provide at-risk youth and underserved communities with sustainable skills, and support high-growth industries by training the workers they need," Solis said.

"This includes promoting green collar jobs," she added. "These are jobs that will provide economic security for working families while securing our energy supply and combating climate change."

Solis said she would also seek to strengthen regulations to protect workers, such as wage and hour laws, and rules regarding overtime pay and pay discrimination.

Solis was first elected to public office in 1985 to the board of trustees of Rio Hondo Community College (California). She served in the California State Assembly from 1992 to 1994, and in 1994 became the first Latina elected to the California State Senate. As the chair of the Senate Industrial Relations Committee, she led the battle to increase the state’s minimum wage. She also authored a record 17 state laws aimed at combating domestic violence.

Her California environmental justice legislation, enacted in 1999, was the first of its kind in the nation to become law.

Solis is the first Latina to serve on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, where she is vice chair of the Environment and Hazardous Materials Subcommittee and a member of the health and telecommunications subcommittees. She also serves on the House Committee on Natural Resources and in 2007 was named a member of the newly created House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.

In Congress, Solis co-authored the Green Jobs Act, which later became part of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, a measure that authorized $125 million for workforce training programs in areas such as energy efficiency retrofitting and "green building" construction.

"We can think of no better person to help President-elect Obama implement his plans for an economic recovery fueled by the creation of millions of new green jobs," said Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club.

Solis was the first woman to receive the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award in 2000 for her work on environmental justice issues. Previous recipients of the award include U.S. Rep. John Lewis, President Gerald Ford and Sens. Russell Feingold and John McCain.

Solis, who used Pell Grants to help pay for her college education, graduated from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, and earned a master’s degree in public administration from the University of Southern California. She worked in the White House Office of Hispanic Affairs during the Carter administration and was later appointed as a management analyst with the Office of Management and Budget in the Civil Rights Division.

Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., will be in charge of Solis’s confirmation as chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. He said Solis will be "an invaluable asset to President Obama in protecting workers’ rights and restoring economic opportunity."

Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., chair of the House Committee on Education and Labor, called Solis a strong champion of working families.

"Her record in the California legislature as a leader on labor issues and her excellent work in Congress on behalf our of nation’s working men and women will restore the Department of Labor as an advocate for hard-working Americans," Miller said in a statement.