Here is a comment sent to us via the Feedback link: “Comment: The Cabinet has been finalized and there’s not one Delawarean. Not one! There were so many good choices: Chris Coons for Secretary of State? Lisa Blunt Rochester for Labor Secretary? Collin O’Mara for EPA Administrator? Jack Markell for HHS? Tony Allen for Education? It’s got to be the first time in decades that not one member of the Cabinet is from the President’s home state.”
There is a Delawarean in the Cabinet. His name is Joe Biden. I am not sure the commenter is correct that every President nominates someone from his state to be a cabinet secretary. Obama did, with Ray LaHood and Arne Duncan both being from Illinois. But I don’t recall that happening with Bill Clinton or Donald Trump or George W. Bush.
But whatever. I was actually afraid was going to nominate Jack Markell to be Education Secretary. That would have been disastrous.
I was secretly hoping for Markell as Transportation Secretary so he could take his focus on biking and trail infrastructure nationwide.
Team Biden said pretty early that they were not going to tap people from the Senate for the cabinet mainly not to upset the margin there. No doubt Coons would be replaced with another D, but still. For some positions they appointed people who had already passed confirmation muster to give the Rs as few reasons as possible to disrupt these nominations. I think that the difference between Obama appointing IL people and Biden not is I think that the IL folks were already a part of the Obama working circle.
That said, that’s still a pretty good list of people who can double down on work to make Delaware an even better and just place.
Senator Coons as Secretary of State or of any other cabinet post would also have been disastrous.