Bottoms prepares for White House exit maintaining loyalty to Biden, Atlanta

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• After Delays, Dr. Umar Johnson ‘Finally’ Sets An Opening Date For His School For Black Boys
• Keisha Lance Bottoms is leaving the W.H. but Biden team eyes 2024 role for her
• Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms to join Biden administration, White House official says
• Iowa State President: ‘Young White Men’ Need A Safe Space Where They ‘Belong’
• Meet the Press Blog

In this role, Bottoms will oversee the White House Office of Public Engagement, which works at the local, state, and national levels to ensure community leaders, diverse perspectives, and new voices have the opportunity to inform the work of the President in an inclusive, transparent and responsible way. Shamina Singh is the Founder and President of the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth. She also serves as the Executive Vice President of Sustainability at Mastercard and is a member of the company’s Management Committee. She has drawn on over 20 years of global experience to develop a unique social impact model that leverages the assets of the public and private sector. In 2018, Mastercard created the Mastercard Impact Fund with an initial $500 million investment. Singh was named President and charged with activating those philanthropic dollars to advance inclusive growth and financial inclusion around the world.

After Delays, Dr. Umar Johnson ‘Finally’ Sets An Opening Date For His School For Black Boys

"It is with deep emotions that I hold my head high and choose not to seek another term as mayor," Bottoms wrote, saying she'd prayed about the decision with her husband, Derek, an executive at the Home Depot Inc. "I don't know what's next for me personally and for our family. But what I do know is that this is a decision made from a position of strength, not weakness," Bottoms said. She noted that she had raised a significant amount of money, and said that she would win the race if it was held today. Bottoms added that she had made her decision "after thoughtful prayer and consideration." Bottoms said that her decision was not due to family reasons, but in large part because of the upheaval during her term.

Keisha Lance Bottoms is leaving the W.H. but Biden team eyes 2024 role for her

Conference of Mayors from 2018 to 2019 and as president of the African American Mayors Association from 2015 to 2016. Bottoms — who, for her part, hasn’t said anything publicly good or bad about her new office digs — became a close ally of Biden’s during his 2020 presidential campaign. However, Richmond’s office was apparently given to senior adviser Anita Dunn — who recently returned to the White House after previously serving in a temporary role early in Biden’s presidency — effectively leaving Bottoms without an office of her own in the White House. Instead, Bottoms has been assigned to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building (EEOB), which is located next to the White House. Bottoms’ time in office included an extraordinary set of challenges for the city, including a cyberattack, the pandemic and mass protests for racial justice in 2020 that tested the city’s relationship with Republican leaders. President Joe Biden announced Monday that Steven Benjamin, the former mayor of Columbia, S.C., will replace Bottoms as a senior adviser and Director of the Office of Public Engagement.

Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms to join Biden administration, White House official says

Keisha became the first Mayor in Atlanta’s history to have served in all three branches of government, having previously served as a Judge and a City Councilmember. As Mayor, she committed herself to realizing her vision of “One Atlanta” – an affordable, resilient, and equitable Atlanta. The Atlanta Civil Service Board on Wednesday reversed the firing, finding that the city didn't follow its own procedures and failed to grant Rolfe due process. Bottoms said then that Rolfe would remain on administrative leave while criminal charges against him are resolved. Yet Bottoms met criticism herself just weeks later when an Atlanta police officer shot and killed Rayshard Brooks. The officer, Garrett Rolfe, was fired last June, a day after he shot the Black man in the parking lot of a fast food restaurant.

The newspaper said her move "creates a wide-open mayor's race this year, and is likely to open the door for a slew of new candidates." Bottoms, who narrowly won a runoff election four years ago, pushed backed against any questions about whether she could have secured a second victory later this year. She pointed to a March reelection fundraiser with Mr. Biden and said polls showed her in a strong position. "The last three years have not been at all what I would've scripted for our city," Bottoms said. She referenced a massive cyber attack, recent racial justice problems and "a madman in the White House," meaning former President Trump.

"My ancestors, direct descendants of the once enslaved, traveled by horse and buggy from the cotton fields of east Georgia in search of a better life for themselves and their children in Atlanta," she wrote. "I have carried their belief for a better tomorrow in my heart, their earnest work ethic in my being, and their hopes for generations not yet born on my mind, each day that I have been privileged to serve as the 60th Mayor of Atlanta." The mayor didn't mention Floyd or Brooks in her announcement letter, focusing instead on having giving the city's police and firefighters raises and alluding to a "social justice movement (that) took over our streets ….and we persisted." The Journal-Constitution noted that the fundraiser was the first headlined by the president since he took office and drew over $500,000, which it called "a sign of her strong financial standing and national political connections."

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The President announced that Julie Chavez Rodriguez will be promoted to Senior Advisor and Assistant to the President and continue serving as the Director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs. (AP) — President Joe Biden has appointed former Columbia, South Carolina, Mayor Steve Benjamin as a top White House adviser, taking over from Keisha Lance Bottoms, the former Atlanta mayor who had assumed the role in June. The "far-reaching and ever-growing" investigation, she said Thursday, "consumed City Hall, often leaving employees paralyzed, and fearful of making the smallest of mistakes, lest they too be investigated, or castrated on the evening news." Bottoms nonetheless watched her profile rise during the coronavirus pandemic and with the renewed attention on policing in the United States after George Floyd's killing by a white Minneapolis officer last spring.

Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms Appointed To New White House Role - BET

Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms Appointed To New White House Role.

Posted: Mon, 17 Jul 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

Benjamin also served in the administration of Gov. Jim Hodges, who in 1998 was the most recent Democrat elected to South Carolina’s highest office. Earlier this year, his wife, DeAndrea Gist Benjamin, was sworn in as a judge on the 4th US. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, appointed to the post by Biden. South Carolina holds the Democrats’ first nominating contest, and Georgia helped solidify the Democrats’ Senate majority during the 2022 midterms and in 2020 gave Biden a rare win in a southern state that hasn’t backed a Democrat for president in 30 years.

Bottoms revealed on Instagram that she joined the White House for what she believed to be a short-term assignment that ended up lasting longer. After his election, then-Mayor Bottoms turned down a cabinet position that was offered. The latest high-profile Black member of President Joe Biden‘s inner circle of close advisers began a new White House job this week without an actual office in the White House, and some of her new colleagues have reportedly found that to be disrespectful. The Council, which was founded in 1973, advises the president on matters relating to U.S. export trade and reports to the president on activities and ways to expand the country’s exports. ATLANTA — Five months after leaving her role as President Joe Biden’s Senior Advisor and Director of the Office of Public Engagement, former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms will take over a new role as part of the President’s Export Council.

The Bottoms Administration made historic strides related to criminal justice reform, became a model city for LGBTQ affairs, and reclaimed its title as running the world’s busiest and most efficient airport. Bottoms came to the mayor's office as an ally of her predecessor, Kasim Reed, whose endorsement proved critical in her campaign. But she sought to establish her own identity, in no small part because of a long-running FBI investigation of City Hall contracts and finances during Reed's tenure. Bottoms said she would offer to refund the donations to her mayoral campaign. She also said that she would try to "leave the city better than I left it," and would work through the end of her term to "continue to do every single thing in our power to make this city safer." When former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms agreed last summer to take a job at the White House, she expected to serve just a few months through the midterm elections.

Hicks said Bottoms’ appointment showcases Georgia’s growing influence and maintains the former mayor’s prominence in national Democratic circles. While it remains to be seen how much day-to-day influence Bottoms will have, she could provide feedback on the administration’s policy efforts and help communicate the White House’s agenda to the larger Democratic base. WASHINGTON — Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms is joining the Biden administration as a top White House aide, NBC News confirmed Tuesday. Sharing the news on Twitter, Bottoms said she’s “honored” to be a part of Biden’s Council. Specifically, the White House said the Council advises the president on government policies and programs that affect U.S. trade performance; promotes export expansion; and provides a forum for discussing and resolving trade-related problems in the business, industrial, agricultural, labor, and government sectors.

“Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms was honored to have been offered a role in the Cabinet, which she respectfully declined,” adviser Rashad Taylor told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in December 2020. Full time and will shortly move to an office in the West Wing,” the White House told POLITICO. Keisha Lance Bottoms, the former mayor of Atlanta, will join the Biden administration, a White House official confirmed to CBS News. She is set to replace Cedric Richmond as the director of the Office of Public Engagement. Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms set to join the Biden Administration Bottoms will replace Cedric Richmond, who served as director of the White House Office of Public Engagement.

I wish her the best as she returns home to Atlanta to be with her family,” Biden said. Bottoms was an early and ardent supporter of Biden when he was running for president in 2020, backing him when many others doubted his chances in a crowded Democratic primary. Benjamin, 53, has long been considered a rising star in Democratic politics, serving three terms as Columbia’s mayor, and the first Black mayor in the city’s history. Conference of Mayors and African Americans Mayors Association, Benjamin spoke at the 2016 Democratic National Convention and was among the candidates considered for Hillary Clinton’s running mate that year. Bottoms' vacated position as White House Office of Public Engagement director will be filled by former Columbia, South Carolina, mayor Stephen Benjamin.

The news that Bottoms had joined the White House comes months after a surprise announcement in May, when she stated that she would not be running for reelection as Atlanta's mayor — writing in a letter addressed to the city that she made her decision with "deep emotions." Bottoms will become director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, adding the advice and counsel of a Black woman to Biden’s inner circle. She succeeds Cedric Richmond, a former Louisiana congressman who in April left for a senior role at the Democratic National Committee. “There is no question the president wants Keisha involved in his political organization in any way she agrees to be involved,” a senior adviser told NBC News.