Contact: Johanna Kichton, 202.660.0605, [email protected] 

CHICAGO, IL— People’s Action Director George Goehl today released the following statement after reports emerged that President-Elect Joe Biden is considering Rahm Emanuel for Secretary of the Department of Transportation:

“Rahm Emanuel is a non-starter. As mayor of Chicago, he covered up the police killing of Laquan McDonald. And worse, when the video was released, he tried to frame the killing as a case of one bad apple, instead of taking responsibility and addressing the pervasive nature of police violence within the Chicago Police Department. If that’s not bad enough, he also shuttered public mental health services in predominantly Black and Brown neighborhoods, eliminated a department overseeing environment standards, and defunded public schools. 

“Under the Clinton and Obama administrations, he attacked public benefits for people in poverty and blocked immigration reform. Appointing Rahm Emanuel would show that the Democratic Party sees no harm in its culture of ‘failing up’ which gives more power to electeds who fail to govern and consultants who fail to win elections.

“People’s Action ran one of the largest persuasion efforts to help elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Rewarding Emanuel for this record would not only be a slap in the face, but also raise red flags about the values and direction of this administration.”

People’s Action is headquartered in Chicago, where one of its founding organizations, National People’s Action, has had a home base for over forty years. People’s Action has a petition to keep Rahm Emanuel out of Biden’s administration.

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People’s Action is a national network of 37 state and local grassroots, power-building organizations united in fighting for justice. We operate the largest progressive rural organizing project in the country. People’s Action and its member organizations coordinated one of the biggest distributed organizing programs in rural areas this election season.