Editor's Note: This is another installment in the Rapier's daily profiles of one of Barack Obama's nominees to a cabinet or high-level administration post.
Secretary of Labor
Born October 20, 1957. Solis has been a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives since 2001, representing the 31st and 32nd congressional districts of California that include East Los Angeles and the San Gabriel Valley. Solis was raised in La Puente, California by immigrant parents from Nicaragua and Mexico. Her father was a Teamsters shop steward in Mexico and after coming to the U.S. worked at a battery recycling plant in the San Gabriel Valley, where he again organized for the Teamsters. Her mother worked for 22 years on the assembly line of Mattel Inc. and belonged to the United Rubber Workers.
Solis graduated from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona in 1979 with a Bachelor of Arts in political science. She then earned a Master of Public Administration degree at the University of Southern California in 1981. She was elected to the California State Assembly in 1992 and to the California State Senate in 1994. She is married to Sam H. Sayyad, who owns an automobile repair center in Irwindale, California.
She was the first Hispanic woman to serve in the State Senate, and was re-elected there in 1998. She became known for her work toward "environmental justice." Solis defeated a long-time Democratic incumbent on the way to gaining election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2000. There she was known for her commitment to labor causes and continuing environmental work. She was re-elected easily to four additional terms in 2002 through 2008.
Solis also served near the end of the Carter administration in the Office of Hispanic Affairs, where she was editor-in-chief of a newsletter during a 1980–1981 internship, At the start of the Reagan administration in 1981, she became a management analyst with the Office of Management and Budget's civil rights division, but her dislike for Reagan's undoing of Carter's policies caused her to leave during that year.
In the California legislature, Solis became well known for authoring bills to prevent domestic violence, and champion labor, education, and health care issues. She described herself as “a big believer that government, if done right, can do a lot to improve the quality of people’s lives.” In 1995, she sponsored a bill to raise the minimum wage; when Governor Pete Wilson vetoed it, she organized a successful drive to force the issue to ballot initiative the next year, using some of her own campaign funds to gain victory for that initiative.
In her runs for Congress, Solis was able to obtain the support of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, Emily's List, Handgun Control Inc., the Sierra Club and the California League of Conservation Voters.,
Solis was also a champion of the Employee Free Choice Act -- the "card check" law that would permit unionizing without secret ballot.
Solis was a strong supporter of Hillary Rodham Clinton's 2008 presidential bid; when that fell short, Barack Obama aggressively sought her support, as part of strengthening to his appeal to Hispanic voters.
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