President Joe Biden is nominating former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to serve as his envoy to Japan. The White House formally announced the much-anticipated nomination Friday. Emanuel was also a former three-term congressman who served as President Barack Obama’s first White House chief of staff and was a senior adviser in President Bill Clinton’s administration. If confirmed by the Senate, Emanuel will be dispatched to Tokyo at a critical point in the U. S.-Japan relationship as Biden has made strengthening relations with partners in the Pacific a priority as he increases focus on China. Biden had considered naming Emanuel to serve as his transportation secretary but ultimately passed him over in the face of fierce opposition from some in the liberal wing of the Democratic Party who took issue with his record on policing and school closures in predominantly Black neighborhoods during his time as Chicago’s mayor. Emanuel served as an informal adviser to Biden’s White House campaign and has been a significant force in Democratic Party politics for much of the last three decades. He left Congress to serve as Barack Obama’s first White House chief of staff, helping the president shepherd his signature health care law and push for massive stimulus in the wake of the Great Recession. As the House Democrats’ chief fundraiser in 2006, he was the architect of the wave election that delivered his party to the majority for the first time in a dozen years, and made Nancy Pelosi the first female speaker in history. As mayor, Emanuel touted record high school graduation rates in the nation’s third largest city and his success recruiting several large corporations to relocate to Chicago among his chief accomplishments. But he faced criticism for soaring homicide rates during his time as mayor, a fraught relationship with the Chicago Teachers Union, and mounting unmet pension obligations for city workers. Much of the city’s financial plight was something Emanuel inherited from his predecessor Richard M. Daley’s administration. In 2018, he announced that he wouldn’t seek a third term as mayor as the city was bracing for the high-profile trial of a white police officer who fatally shot a black teen, Laquan McDonald, on a city street. The 2014 shooting death of McDonald, who was shot 16 times, was one of the several high-profile police shootings of black men and women around the country that spurred national outrage and a larger debate about policing in Black communities. Emanuel, facing reelection in 2015, argued against releasing police video of the shooting while the investigation was continuing. After months of litigation – and after Emanuel was reelected to a second term – a court ordered the city to show the footage to the public. Emanuel’s relationship with Chicago’s Black community became strained following the video’s release. Emanuel in a statement touted his decades of working with Biden and the importance of the U. S.-Japan relationship.


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