Personnel is Policy

After saying for months that she is against the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), Hillary Clinton recently selected Ken Salazar, an industry insider and pro-TPP lobbyist, to lead her transition team. If Clinton is elected, Salazar will be in charge of identifying, selecting, and vetting personnel to serve in her administration and throughout the federal government.

Salazar has been a strong supporter of the TPP. He is a member of pro-TPP corporate front group “Progressive Coalition for American Jobs,” and he has published multiple op-eds calling for the TPP to be enacted. His firm, WilmerHale, has reported lobbying in favor of the TPP, “fast track” authority for it to pass through Congress more easily, and trade issues generally for clients including the Business Roundtable and Owen Corning.

As political observers often say, personnel is policy. By putting Salazar in charge of personnel, Clinton is making it much more likely that she will be surrounded by people pushing her to sign the TPP into law.

Background: The TPP is a deal that was negotiated in secret between the US and 11 other Pacific Rim nations. Despite being branded as a “free trade” deal, most of the TPP is about empowering multinational corporations to undermine national sovereignty and violate people’s rights. The TPP would be the largest deal of its kind in history, and it poses a grave threat to good-paying jobs, internet freedom, the environment, access to medicine, food safety, and the future of freedom of expression.