Thread by @cmclymer

There's obviously a lot of speculation on the number of women to be in Biden's cabinet, so here's a quick primer on the numbers + historical context for perspective.

There are currently 23 cabinet and cabinet-level positions that serve at the pleasure of the President. (thread)

All of these positions are intended to be Senate-confirmed; otherwise, they're in an "acting" capacity. The lone exceptions are Vice President (when directly elected, of course) and the White House Chief of Staff.

The most notable difference between cabinet and cabinet-level is that only cabinet officials are in the presidential line of succession. Should the President die, it goes to VP, then Speaker, then Senate Pro Temp, etc. and all the way down to Sec. of Homeland Security.

The cabinet-level positions (WH Chief of Staff, U.S Trade Rep, Director of National Intelligence, Director of OMB, CIA Director, EPA Administrator, and SBA Administrator) are NOT in that line of succession. An important distinction!

Anyway, the great folks at @CAWP_RU were kind enough to publish a fact packet last week summarizing the history of women in presidential cabinets. You can and should read that here: cawp.rutgers.edu/sites/default/…

Here are the highlights:

The most total women appointed to cabinet or cabinet-level positions by one president is 10, by Obama.

The most women to have served concurrently in those positions is 9, during Clinton's 2nd term. (Obama had 8 women serving concurrently his 2nd term.)

However, another way to look at this is as a percentage of the total cabinet and cabinet-level positions. We haven't always had 23. During Clinton's second term, there were 22, which means about 41% of those positions were filled by women.

So, in order to have the most gender-diverse presidential cabinet in history, Biden would need to appoint 10 women to cabinet or cabinet-level positions (serving concurrently) satisfying both the highest total number of women and highest-ever percent of the cabinet (43.5%).

With VP-elect Kamala Harris, announced nominee for Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, and announced nominee for Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, that makes three right off the bat.

Secretary of Defense is more than likely going to be Michèle Flournoy but might be Sen. Tammy Duckworth. This would be the first time a woman leads the Pentagon. So, that's four.

Rep. Deb Haaland is under serious consideration for Secretary of the Interior and arguably the odds-on favorite. She'd be the first woman of color to serve in the position and second Native American to serve in a cabinet (VP Charles Curtis was 1st). That would make five.

Former Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, Rep. Marcia Fudge, and Rep. Cheri Bustos (along with Rep. Collin Peterson) are considered the top contenders for Secretary for Agriculture. Sen. Klobuchar is also mentioned. That would make six.

Randi Weingarten, Lily Garcia, and Linda Darling-Hammond are the names most frequently mentioned for Secretary of Education. That would make seven.

Women are also very much in the mix for HHS, HUD, Justice, Labor, Commerce, and the VA. Let's say women are appointed to two of those and hold the other Cabinet seats mentioned. That's eight cabinet seats. That would be half of the main Cabinet (16 seats).

That's before we get to the cabinet-level positions other than DNI nominee Avril Haines. With Ron Klain announced as WH Chief of Staff, that leaves five seats. Combined with the main Cabinet, two of those would make history for a presidential cabinet.

And it's very much in the realm of possibility that more than half of these cabinet and cabinet-level positions (12 seats) would be women, which seems quite appropriate given that women--particularly women of color, and especially Black women--delivered the election for Biden.

But it's also worth noting that Biden's closest White House staff will be dominated by women. WH Deputy Chief of Staff has already been announced as Jen O'Malley Dillon. WH Comms Director and WH Press Secretary are likely to be women, too.

Not to mention: U.N. Ambassador will be Linda Thomas-Greenfield, one of the most highly qualified people to ever hold the position. America will be represented on the world stage by a Black woman.

Of the cabinet and cabinet-level positions, women have never served in the following:

Vice President
Treasury
Defense
Veterans Affairs
White House Chief of Staff
Director of National Intelligence

So, the VA and WH Chief of Staff (we love ya, Ron) may be all that remain.

We have a lot of tough fights ahead to repair the damage that's been done to our country and within the Democratic Party and overall progressive movement, there are a lot of tough conversations to be had about the future.

But I'm gonna enjoy this progress. It feels good. /thread

POSTSCRIPT: some folks rightly pointed out that Biden is planning to bring U.N. Ambassador to cabinet level, which wouldn't change the number of women to break both total seats and percentage of seats (10), but it would change the number to have a majority (13).