Politics
President Biden Announces 10 Key Nominations
Published
5 years agoon
WASHINGTON – Today, President Joe Biden announced his intent to nominate the following 10 individuals to serve in key roles:
- David R. Gilmour, Nominee for Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Republic of Equatorial Guinea
- Scott Miller, Nominee for Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Swiss Confederation and to the Principality of Liechtenstein
- Marc R. Stanley, Nominee for Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Argentine Republic
- Sam Bagenstos, Nominee for General Counsel, Department of Health and Human Services
- Melissa Dalton, Nominee for Assistant Secretary for Homeland Defense and Global Security Affairs, Department of Defense
- Alexia Latortue, Nominee for Assistant Secretary for International Markets, Department of the Treasury
- Brent Neiman, Nominee for Deputy Under Secretary / Designated Assistant Secretary for International Finance and Development, Department of the Treasury
- Alice Albright, Nominee for Chief Executive Officer of the Millennium Challenge Corporation
- Todd Harper, Nominee for Chairman of the National Credit Union Administration
- Owen Hernstadt, Nominee for Member of the Board of Directors, Export-Import Bank
David R. Gilmour, Nominee for Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Republic of Equatorial Guinea
David R. Gilmour, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, class of Minister-Counselor, is the Chargé d’Affaires a.i. at the U.S. Embassy in N’Djamena, Chad. He is a former U.S. Ambassador to the Togolese Republic. He has served in the Bureau of African Affairs at the Department of State as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Central Africa, Director of East African Affairs, and Director of Public Diplomacy for Africa. He was Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. embassies in Panama and Malawi, and Counselor for Public Affairs at the U.S. Mission in Geneva. Other overseas assignments include Australia, Costa Rica, South Africa and Cameroon. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including Partnership Excellence Award from the Secretary of State’s Office of Global Partnerships. Gilmour received a B.A. from Saginaw Valley State University in Michigan, and an M.A. from the University of Texas at Austin. He speaks French and Spanish.
Scott Miller, Nominee for Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Swiss Confederation and to the Principality of Liechtenstein
Scott Miller is an LGBTQ rights activist and philanthropist. As co-chair of the Gill Foundation’s board of directors, Miller directs the foundation’s national giving strategy to advance LGBTQ equality, including public education campaigns to ban conversion therapy and end discrimination against LGBTQ Americans. At the foundation, Miller also oversees local efforts to ensure equal opportunity for all Coloradans, including generous support for K-12 STEM education at numerous Colorado public schools. During the pandemic, Miller led efforts to provide over 5.6 million meals to tens of thousands of his fellow Coloradans to alleviate food insecurity. Together Miller and his husband, Tim Gill, are among the top contributors to LGBTQ equality issues in the United States. Previously, Miller served as an account vice president at UBS Wealth Management in Denver, Colorado. Miller earned a Bachelor of Science degree with honors in business administration from the University of Colorado Boulder. Upon graduation, he started his career as a management consultant for Accenture, followed by work as an event planner for global clientele.
Marc R. Stanley, Nominee for Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Argentine Republic
Marc R. Stanley is President of the Stanley Law Group and a board-certified civil trial lawyer in Dallas, Texas. A former president of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association and the Dallas Trial Lawyers Association, Stanley has served in leadership positions in dozens of local and national charitable and civic organizations throughout his career. He was a Council Member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. and a Member of the Board of Visitors at the United States Air Force Air University at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama. He served for four years as Chairman of the Texas Public Finance Authority and was Co-Chair of the Mayor’s Complete Count Outreach Committee for the U.S Census (City of Dallas). Stanley earned a B.B.A. at George Washington University, and a J.D. at the University of Texas-Austin. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Tikkun Olam Award by the Jewish Council for Public Affairs.
Sam Bagenstos, Nominee for General Counsel, Department of Health and Human Services
Samuel R. Bagenstos currently serves as General Counsel to the Office of Management and Budget. He is on leave from his position as the Frank G. Millard Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School. From 2009 to 2011, Bagenstos served as a political appointee in the Obama-Biden Administration’s Department of Justice, where he was Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. Pursuant to an appointment by Governor Gretchen Whitmer, he chaired the Michigan Employment Relations Commission from 2019 to 2021. An expert in civil rights law, Bagenstos wrote the leading law school casebook on disability rights law and has engaged with state Medicaid systems as a lawyer, advocate, and consultant to promote community-based services for individuals with disabilities. He has argued four cases in the Supreme Court of the United States, including key matters under the Americans with Disabilities Act as well as Young v. UPS, a case that established new protections for pregnant workers. A graduate of the University of North Carolina and the Harvard Law School, Bagenstos clerked for Judge Stephen Reinhardt on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court of the United States.
Melissa Dalton, Nominee for Assistant Secretary for Homeland Defense and Global Security Affairs, Department of Defense
Melissa G. Dalton is currently the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy, Plans, and Capabilities at the U.S. Department of Defense. She is responsible for advising the Secretary of Defense and other senior defense leaders on national security and defense strategy; the forces, contingency plans, and associated posture necessary to implement the defense strategy; nuclear deterrence and missile defense policy; and security cooperation plans and policies. Prior to her appointment to the Biden-Harris Administration in January 2021, Ms. Dalton was a senior fellow and deputy director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) International Security Program and director of the Cooperative Defense Project. Her CSIS research focused on reinforcing the principled foundations of U.S. defense strategy and military operations, including the responsible role of the U.S. military in Defense Support of Civil Authorities. Prior to joining CSIS in 2014, Ms. Dalton served for a decade as a career civil servant in the Bush and Obama Administrations at DoD. Her assignments included senior advisor for force planning, special assistant to the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, policy adviser to the commander of the International Security Assistance Force in Kabul, Afghanistan, and country director for Lebanon and Syria in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. She also served as an intelligence analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Alexia Latortue, Nominee for Assistant Secretary for International Markets, Department of the Treasury
Alexia Latortue is Deputy Chief Executive Offer of the Millennium Challenge Corporation where she helps shape MCC’s strategic vision, oversees the agency’s operations to deliver on programmatic priorities and leads the team. Ms. Latortue has over 20 years of experience in international development, with a focus on development finance, policy and making markets work for all people. Her work has covered private sector development, financial systems development, climate, infrastructure and economic inclusion.
Ms. Latortue was previously Managing Director for Corporate Strategy and a member of the Executive Committee of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). Prior to joining the EBRD, she served as the Obama-Biden Administration as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Development Policy at the Department of the Treasury, advancing inclusive growth and poverty reduction internationally through the multilateral development banks. Previously, Ms. Latortue spent 10 years with the World Bank where her last assignment was Deputy CEO of CGAP, a unit dedicated to advancing financial inclusion. She began her career with Development Alternatives, Inc.
Ms. Latortue earned a M.A. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and a B.S. from Georgetown University.
Brent Neiman, Nominee for Deputy Under Secretary / Designated Assistant Secretary for International Finance and Development, Department of the Treasury
Brent Neiman is the Edward Eagle Brown Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. His teaching and research focus on international macroeconomics, finance, and trade. He is a co-founder of the Global Capital Allocation Project and serves as the director of the Initiative on International Economics at the Becker Friedman Institute and a co-director of the Initiative for Global Markets at Chicago Booth. He is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a research fellow at the Center for Economic Policy Research, and is an associate editor of The American Economic Review, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, and The Journal of International Economics.
Neiman previously served as the staff economist for international finance on the White House Council of Economic Advisers and has worked at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, at McKinsey and Company, and at the McKinsey Global Institute. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Economics and a Bachelor of Applied Science from the University of Pennsylvania. He earned a master’s degree in mathematical modelling from Oxford University, where he was a Thouron Scholar, and received his PhD in economics from Harvard University.
Alice Albright, Nominee for Chief Executive Officer of the Millennium Challenge Corporation
Alice Albright serves as the Chief Executive Officer of the Global Partnership for Education, a multilateral partnership and fund dedicated to improving education outcomes for the most marginalized children in low income countries. Before joining GPE, Ms. Albright served in the Obama-Biden Administration from 2009 to 2013 as the Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer of the Export-Import Bank of the United States. From 2001 to 2009, Ms. Albright served as the Chief Financial and Investment Officer for the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization. While there, Ms. Albright led GAVI’s innovative finance efforts, including the launch the International Finance Facility for Immunization, a program to enhance GAVI’s ability to finance the purchase of vaccines. Previously, Ms. Albright worked as a banker with a focus on emerging markets and held a variety of positions at Citicorp, Bankers Trust Company, JP Morgan, and the Carlyle Group.
Ms. Albright has served on a number of boards and working groups in the development, education, and gender arenas. Currently, she serves on the UK’s G7 Gender Equality Advisory Council, the Board of Williams College, and the UNESCO Institute of Statistics. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She has been decorated as an Officier de L’Order de L’Etalon by President Kabore and a Commandeur, Ordre National du Lion by President Macky Sall.
Ms. Albright graduated from Williams College with a BA in History, with honors, and received an MIA from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. She is also a Chartered Financial Analyst.
Todd Harper, Nominee for Chairman of the National Credit Union Administration
Todd Harper has specialized in financial services policy during his more than 25 years of government service and has led the NCUA Board as Chairman since January 2021. He also chairs the interagency Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council. Mr. Harper joined the NCUA Board in April 2019 and is the first NCUA staffer to become a Board Member and Chairman. From 2011 to 2017, he led the agency’s Office of Public and Congressional Affairs and served as the chief policy advisor to two NCUA Chairmen. Previously, as staff director for the Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance and Government Sponsored Enterprises in the U.S. House of Representatives, Mr. Harper contributed to the efforts after the financial crisis to enact the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. As legislative director to former Congressman Paul E. Kanjorski of Pennsylvania, he also worked on bipartisan legislation concerning credit union capital rules, terrorism risk insurance, auditing standards and subprime mortgage lending. A member of the LGBTQ community, Mr. Harper earned an M.P.P. from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and a B.S. with high distinction in business analysis from Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business.
Owen Hernstadt, Nominee for Member of the Board of Directors, Export-Import Bank
Owen Herrnstadt is the Chief of Staff to the International President and Director of Trade and Globalization at the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. As Chief of Staff, he assists in running one of the largest manufacturing and transportation unions in the United States. As Director of Trade and Globalization, he develops policy for international trade, economic investment, international labor standards, and human rights matters. He also teaches employment and labor law at the Georgetown University Law Center and has taught international employment and labor at American University’s Washington College of Law.
Mr. Herrnstadt is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Independent Mexico Labor Expert Board, U.S. Export-Import Bank Federal Advisory Committee, and the U.S. State Department Federal Advisory Committee on International Economics. He also served as Co-Chair of the State Department’s Stakeholder Advisory Board on OECD Guidelines and as Chair of the Board of Directors of the Baltimore Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. He has testified, written articles and made presentations on labor and employment law, international employment and labor law, corporate social responsibility, trade, manufacturing policy, human rights, and industrial relations in the U.S. and abroad.
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Central Florida News
Orlando Commissioner Tony Ortiz Files for Mayor, Could Become City’s First Puerto Rican Mayor
Published
5 hours agoon
May 12, 2026By
Willie DavidORLANDO, Fla. (FNN) — Tony Ortiz, a longtime Orlando city commissioner, former Marine, and former law enforcement officer, has officially filed to run for mayor of Orlando following Mayor Buddy Dyer’s announcement that he will not seek re-election.
Ortiz filed his candidacy ahead of the November 2027 nonpartisan mayoral election. If elected, he would become Orlando’s first Puerto Rican mayor.
GROWING FIELD OF CANDIDATES
Ortiz joins a growing field of candidates that includes State Representative Anna Eskamani, who could become Orlando’s first Iranian American mayor if elected, along with Elliot Kahanna and Abdelnasser Luth.
In his campaign announcement, Ortiz emphasized issues affecting residents across Orlando, including housing affordability, public safety, homelessness, transportation, economic opportunity, and neighborhood stability.
“As the City of Orlando continues to grow and evolve, residents across the city are increasingly focused on the issues that shape everyday life,” Ortiz stated in his campaign announcement.
LAW ENFORCEMENT BACKGROUNDS RESONATE WITH ORANGE COUNTY VOTERS
Political observers note that Orange County voters have historically supported candidates with backgrounds in local, state, and federal law enforcement or public safety roles.
Examples include Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings, former Orange County sheriff; former U.S. Congresswoman Val Demings, former Orlando police chief; former State Senator Victor Torres, a former NYC Transit Police officer; Maitland City Commissioner Keith Givens, a retired FBI agent; former State Representative Daisy Morales, a former HSI official; Apopka City Commissioner Diane Velazquez, a former NYPD officer; and former Orlando City Commissioner Samuel Ings, a former Orlando police officer.
HISTORIC OPPORTUNITY FOR REPRESENTATION
Ortiz’s candidacy highlights the continued growth and political influence of Central Florida’s Puerto Rican community. If successful, his election would mark a historic milestone for Puerto Rican representation in Orlando city government.
Florida
Central Florida Lawmakers Challenge DeSantis Redistricting Map as Lawsuits Mount
Published
6 days agoon
May 6, 2026By
Willie DavidORLANDO, Fla. (FNN) — The Central Florida Black Caucus of Local Elected Officials held a press conference on the steps of Orlando City Hall, criticizing a new congressional map signed into law by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
Speakers included U.S. Congressman Maxwell Frost, State Senator Lavon Bracy-Davis, State Representative Bruce Antone, Orange County Clerk of Courts Tiffany Moore Russell, representatives from Equal Ground, and the Central Florida Urban League. Officials argued the map weakens minority representation and follows a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that scaled back key protections under the Voting Rights Act.
Florida National News has learned that three lawsuits have been filed seeking to block the newly approved congressional map following the redistricting process. The map is widely viewed as an effort to expand Republican representation in Florida’s congressional delegation ahead of upcoming elections.
IMPACT ON BLACK REPRESENTATION
Leaders warned the redistricting plan could significantly reduce the influence of Black voters in Central Florida and across the state. They argued that dismantling historically minority-access districts undermines decades of progress in equitable representation.
LEGAL CHALLENGES UNDERWAY
At least three lawsuits have been filed challenging the legality of the new map. Civil rights advocates contend the redistricting plan violates federal protections and could further erode voting rights following the Supreme Court’s recent decision.
FUTURE OF BLACK CONGRESSIONAL LEADERSHIP
Elected officials and advocacy groups expressed concern about the long-term effects on Black congressional representation. They emphasized the need for continued legal action and community engagement to protect fair representation in future elections.
Florida
DeSantis’ New Florida Congressional Map Could Spark Lawsuits, Legislative Showdown, and Statewide Protests
Published
2 weeks agoon
April 27, 2026TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (FNN) — Governor Ron DeSantis unveiled a proposed congressional redistricting map that could significantly reshape Florida’s representation in the U.S. House ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
The proposal, released Monday, outlines districts that could favor Republicans in 24 seats, compared to four Democratic-leaning districts. Currently, Florida’s congressional delegation includes 20 Republicans and seven Democrats, with one vacant seat.
REDISTRICTING PROPOSAL & POLITICAL IMPACT
The governor said the new map reflects Florida’s population changes and fulfills his commitment to mid-decade redistricting. Lawmakers have been called into a special legislative session to consider the proposal.
The map appears to eliminate four Democratic-held seats, including a Tampa-area district represented by U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, an Osceola County district held by U.S. Rep. Darren Soto—the first Puerto Rican elected to Congress from Florida—and a Palm Beach-Broward district that could displace U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz.
The proposal also affects a majority-Black voting district spanning Palm Beach and Broward counties, previously represented by former U.S. Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, raising concerns about the future of minority representation.
Supporters, including Evan Power, say the map could better align districts with voter distribution. Critics, including Nikki Fried, have called the proposal unconstitutional gerrymandering. Florida law prohibits partisan gerrymandering, setting up potential legal challenges.
Rep. Tray McCurdy, D-Orlando and Rep. Angie Nixon, D-Jacksonville sit on the Florida Seal in protest as debate stops on Senate Bill 2-C: Establishing the Congressional Districts of the State in the House of Representatives Thursday, April 21, 2022 at the Capitol in Tallahassee, Fla. Rep. Daisy Morales, D-Orlando, joins the protest, holding a sign. The session was halted on the protest. (AP Photo/Phil Sears)
LOOKING BACK: 2022 PROTESTS OVER REDISTRICTING
The current debate mirrors tensions from 2022, when Democratic lawmakers staged a sit-in protest on the Florida House floor in opposition to a previous congressional map backed by DeSantis.
Lawmakers including Yvonne Hinson, Angie Nixon, Travaris McCurdy, Felicia Robinson, and Daisy Morales participated in the protest, temporarily halting legislative proceedings.
Morales, a member of the Congressional Redistricting Subcommittee and the only Hispanic lawmaker involved in the sit-in, strongly criticized the map at the time.
“Our democracy is being attacked. The governor eliminating two Black congressional seats is a power grab and it’s wrong,” Morales said in a written statement. “Stripping seats from Black representation is the same as saying the Black voice—the Black vote—doesn’t matter.”
She also warned about potential impacts on Hispanic representation:
“With this map passing, I’m deeply concerned it could target the only Puerto Rican representing Florida in Congress, Darren Soto, to benefit partisan interests. We don’t want to disenfranchise the 1.2 million Puerto Ricans in Florida.”
WHAT COMES NEXT IN 2026
As lawmakers prepare to debate the new proposal, Democrats are expected to push back through legal challenges, legislative opposition, and public advocacy.
The outcome of Florida’s redistricting battle could play a pivotal role in shaping control of the U.S. House and influence the national political landscape heading into the 2026 midterm elections.