NEW DELHI: From President Joe Biden being forced to withdraw her nomination for director of the office of management and budget; under pressure in March 2021, to the White House announcement on Friday, that she will serve as assistant to the President and domestic policy advisor, Indian American policy expert Neera Tanden has come a long way. “Tanden is now not only the senior-most Indian American in the White House, but she is also a long-time, deep insider who has engineered several of the Clinton-Obama-Biden era flagship policy programmes and campaigns,” says Robinder Sachdev, president of Delhi based think tank Imagindia Institute, and one of the founders of US India Political Action Committee, a bipartisan non-profit organisation in the US.
Based on Tanden’s long history at the highest levels of Democratic policy and politics, as is evident from the senior roles that she has been appointed to in this administration, it’s obvious that she has President Biden’s implicit trust, feels Sanjeev Joshipura, Washington DC based executive director of Indiaspora, a non-profit organisation of global Indian origin leaders. “In addition to her formal title at the White House, this makes her the highest ranking and most relied upon Indian-American on the White House staff,” he said.
Tanden is indeed one of the few policy and political consultants who has worked for three US presidents; Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and now Joe Biden. She was well known as CEO of Washington DC based think tank Center for American Progress, an influential advocacy organisation. Her involvement with Democratic presidential campaigns goes all the way back to Michael Dukakis in 1988 and then, Bill Clinton in 1992 and Barack Obama in 2008. She was an important member of Team Hillary Clinton having worked for the former first lady and senator’s campaigns in 2000 for the New York Senate seat and her run for the 2008 Democratic nomination and finally the 2016 nomination and presidential campaign. Tanden, who received her bachelor of science from UCLA and her juris doctor degree from Yale Law School, previously served as senior advisor for health reform at the department of health and human services, working on President Obama’s health reform team in the White House. Prior to that, she was the director of domestic policy for the Obama-Biden presidential campaign and served as senior advisor to the Chancellor of the New York City Schools and as associate director for domestic policy in the Clinton White House.
Her background has been pioneering in multiple fields, including political, policy and intellectual, campaign management, and legislative domains. “She has played both roles – advisory, and operational – in her various capacities over 25 years. The office she will now head, domestic policy, is critical for Biden’s re-election next year. This office coordinates and is in-charge of converting the entirety of the president’s domestic agenda into actionable change on the ground. If Biden is re-elected, there is good chance that she will be appointed into a Cabinet position, perhaps as the health secretary,” Sachdev said. He feels that Tanden will play a very important role in the Biden-Harris team in the run-up to 2024.
“As head of domestic policy at White House, she now has two responsibilities – one, to make sure that Biden’s domestic agenda is implemented at the earliest to the maximum possible, so that he can go to the electors with a strong report card of delivering on the promises that he had made in 2020. Two, to prepare an attractive and sell-able domestic agenda vision for 2024-2028 that Biden will take to the American public to convince them to re-elect him,” Sachdev added. He feels that it may also be possible that as the election comes nearer, Tanden may be drafted into a senior role in the Biden-Harris campaign team and leave her White House position.
Joshipura, however, feels that as an appointed White House official, there will be degrees of separation between her work and that of the Biden-Harris re-election campaign. “But serving as the coordinating nerve centre of all domestic public policy issues in the United States is a huge job with a very broad scope, and as such, her work will naturally feed into the narrative of the political campaign,” he added.
After Tanden withdrew her name for director of the OMB, because of several of her tweets in the past where she had acrimoniously attacked law makers on both sides of the aisle; President Biden named her as a senior advisor, and in October 2021, staff secretary. In the recent White House announcement naming Tanden as assistant to the president and domestic policy advisor, Biden said: “I am pleased to announce that Neera Tanden will continue to drive the formulation and implementation of my domestic policy, from economic mobility and racial equity to health care, immigration and education.”
As senior advisor and staff secretary, she oversaw decision-making processes across the president’s domestic, economic, and national security teams. “She has 25 years of experience in public policy, has served three Presidents, and led one of the largest think tanks in the country for nearly a decade. She was a key architect of the affordable care Act and helped drive key domestic policies that became part of my agenda, including clean energy subsidies and sensible gun reform. While growing up, Neera [Tanden] relied on some of the critical programmes that she will oversee as domestic policy advisor, and I know those insights will serve my administration and the American people well. I look forward to continuing to work closely with Neera [Tanden] in her new role,” President Biden said in the announcement.
Indian American Impact, an organisation that supports Indians Americans and South Asians on their journey in politics and public life, said in a statement on Saturday that the announcement on Tanden’s new appointment is a momentous occasion for South Asian Americans across the US. “Tanden is a trailblazer in every sense of the word, and her appointment to such an influential role is a testament to her exceptional leadership and expertise,” the statement said. “As the first Indian American woman to lead one of the three White House policy councils, Tanden will lead the formulation and implementation of the Biden-Harris agenda.”
She is considered one of the top Indian American women thought leaders and influencers in the Democratic Party – M.R. Rangaswami, founder and chairman, Indiaspora, sums up that since “all politics is local” and as the US Presidential election nears, the focus will be on everything domestic – Tanden will be very actively involved in this process.
Based on Tanden’s long history at the highest levels of Democratic policy and politics, as is evident from the senior roles that she has been appointed to in this administration, it’s obvious that she has President Biden’s implicit trust, feels Sanjeev Joshipura, Washington DC based executive director of Indiaspora, a non-profit organisation of global Indian origin leaders. “In addition to her formal title at the White House, this makes her the highest ranking and most relied upon Indian-American on the White House staff,” he said.
Tanden is indeed one of the few policy and political consultants who has worked for three US presidents; Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and now Joe Biden. She was well known as CEO of Washington DC based think tank Center for American Progress, an influential advocacy organisation. Her involvement with Democratic presidential campaigns goes all the way back to Michael Dukakis in 1988 and then, Bill Clinton in 1992 and Barack Obama in 2008. She was an important member of Team Hillary Clinton having worked for the former first lady and senator’s campaigns in 2000 for the New York Senate seat and her run for the 2008 Democratic nomination and finally the 2016 nomination and presidential campaign. Tanden, who received her bachelor of science from UCLA and her juris doctor degree from Yale Law School, previously served as senior advisor for health reform at the department of health and human services, working on President Obama’s health reform team in the White House. Prior to that, she was the director of domestic policy for the Obama-Biden presidential campaign and served as senior advisor to the Chancellor of the New York City Schools and as associate director for domestic policy in the Clinton White House.
Her background has been pioneering in multiple fields, including political, policy and intellectual, campaign management, and legislative domains. “She has played both roles – advisory, and operational – in her various capacities over 25 years. The office she will now head, domestic policy, is critical for Biden’s re-election next year. This office coordinates and is in-charge of converting the entirety of the president’s domestic agenda into actionable change on the ground. If Biden is re-elected, there is good chance that she will be appointed into a Cabinet position, perhaps as the health secretary,” Sachdev said. He feels that Tanden will play a very important role in the Biden-Harris team in the run-up to 2024.
“As head of domestic policy at White House, she now has two responsibilities – one, to make sure that Biden’s domestic agenda is implemented at the earliest to the maximum possible, so that he can go to the electors with a strong report card of delivering on the promises that he had made in 2020. Two, to prepare an attractive and sell-able domestic agenda vision for 2024-2028 that Biden will take to the American public to convince them to re-elect him,” Sachdev added. He feels that it may also be possible that as the election comes nearer, Tanden may be drafted into a senior role in the Biden-Harris campaign team and leave her White House position.
Joshipura, however, feels that as an appointed White House official, there will be degrees of separation between her work and that of the Biden-Harris re-election campaign. “But serving as the coordinating nerve centre of all domestic public policy issues in the United States is a huge job with a very broad scope, and as such, her work will naturally feed into the narrative of the political campaign,” he added.
After Tanden withdrew her name for director of the OMB, because of several of her tweets in the past where she had acrimoniously attacked law makers on both sides of the aisle; President Biden named her as a senior advisor, and in October 2021, staff secretary. In the recent White House announcement naming Tanden as assistant to the president and domestic policy advisor, Biden said: “I am pleased to announce that Neera Tanden will continue to drive the formulation and implementation of my domestic policy, from economic mobility and racial equity to health care, immigration and education.”
As senior advisor and staff secretary, she oversaw decision-making processes across the president’s domestic, economic, and national security teams. “She has 25 years of experience in public policy, has served three Presidents, and led one of the largest think tanks in the country for nearly a decade. She was a key architect of the affordable care Act and helped drive key domestic policies that became part of my agenda, including clean energy subsidies and sensible gun reform. While growing up, Neera [Tanden] relied on some of the critical programmes that she will oversee as domestic policy advisor, and I know those insights will serve my administration and the American people well. I look forward to continuing to work closely with Neera [Tanden] in her new role,” President Biden said in the announcement.
Indian American Impact, an organisation that supports Indians Americans and South Asians on their journey in politics and public life, said in a statement on Saturday that the announcement on Tanden’s new appointment is a momentous occasion for South Asian Americans across the US. “Tanden is a trailblazer in every sense of the word, and her appointment to such an influential role is a testament to her exceptional leadership and expertise,” the statement said. “As the first Indian American woman to lead one of the three White House policy councils, Tanden will lead the formulation and implementation of the Biden-Harris agenda.”
She is considered one of the top Indian American women thought leaders and influencers in the Democratic Party – M.R. Rangaswami, founder and chairman, Indiaspora, sums up that since “all politics is local” and as the US Presidential election nears, the focus will be on everything domestic – Tanden will be very actively involved in this process.