California: Hilda Solis

Minutes ago, the US Senate confirmed Hilda Solis by an 80-17 vote to be the Secretary of Labor.  This is a big victory for progressives to fight conservative obstructionism and get a real friend to the labor movement in a top position in Barack Obama's cabinet.  It was an unnecessarily long fight, but this is a great resolution.  In addition, with Solis having authored the Green Jobs Act, she will undoubtedly be a force for making sure jobs in the alternative energy sector are good union jobs that pay a living wage.

This also means that there will shortly, perhaps as soon as tomorrow, be a vacancy in the 32nd District seat.

It was a long struggle with a somewhat anti-climactic resolution, but Hilda Solis was approved by the Senate HELP Committee (Health, Education, Labor and Pensions) on a voice vote.  Today over 20,000 petition signatures were delivered to the leaders of the HELP Committee by SEIU, UFW, UFCW, Change to Win and the Courage Campaign, and those voices were heard.

Now the confirmation moves to the full Senate for a vote, where it will hopefully be approved in short order.  Sometimes we win one.

Politico.com reported today that the nomination of Rep. Hilda Solis as labor secretary won't be derailed by Republicans over her husband's tax problems.

But the Los Angeles Democrat is not out of the confirmation woods yet, as no vote has been scheduled. From Politico:

"I can't hold her at fault for something he did," said Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), who sits on the committee. "It's totally different than Geithner and totally different than Tom Daschle."

But....

Isakson said they are reviewing whether her role in an organization lobbying Congress violated campaign finance rules, "which I think would just come back to hurt her if we didn't get that out and cleared out one way or another.

After waiting and waiting, labor groups are finally demanding that Hilda Solis be confirmed as the Secretary of Labor.  Andy Stern of the SEIU made a short video:

Their action page has a petition.

And this is just the beginning:

"Enough is enough, the gloves are coming off on Friday," said one official with the AFL-CIO, outraged over the delays. "Labor, women's groups, Hispanic groups are opening fire. We worked with Republicans in good faith. Hilda Solis has answered all their questions but they continue to oppose her for partisan ideological reasons."

With Solis's nomination stalled again on Thursday after revelations that her husband had just settled $6,400 in tax leins against his business, unions are no longer willing to hold their breath for the sake of fewer dramatics.