Holder goes before the Senate Judiciary Committee Jan. 15. For conservative Republicans, he is the liberal face of nominees to come as Obama remakes the federal judiciary, and possibly the Supreme Court.

Republicans also want to show they still have some clout in the Senate – enough votes to stop a nomination with a filibuster.

Holder is expected to eventually win the AG job, but not without a fight.

The Human Rights Campaign and other human and civil rights groups have begun a campaign to ensure Holder gets through the nomination process. HRC President Joe Solmonese joined leaders from the NAACP, the National Council of La Raza, and the National Women’s Law Center on Capitol Hill to show their support for Holder.

Holder has a strong LGBT rights record.

After graduating from Columbia Law School, Holder joined the Department of Justice’s Attorney General’s Honors Program. 

In 1988, he was nominated for and confirmed as Associate Judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.  In 1993, President Clinton nominated Holder for United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, and he was confirmed later that year.  

In this role, he worked vigorously to reduce crime and increase neighborhood safety.  Notably, he emphasized hate crimes enforcement to ensure that bias-motivated crimes would receive adequate resources, attention, and punishment. Hate crimes continued to be a priority for Holder after his 1997 appointment by President Clinton to Deputy Attorney General.  

In a 1999 appearance before the House Judiciary Committee, Holder called for LGBT inclusion in federal hate crime law, noting that currently the law “provides no coverage whatsoever for violent hate crimes committed because of bias based on the victim’s sexual orientation, gender or disability, and these crimes pose a serious problem for our nation.”

The Matthew Shepard Hate Crime Act was named for the 21-year-old college student who was murdered in an anti-gay hate crime in Wyoming in October 1998. It would add sexual orientation to the list of categories covered under federal hate crime law.

The bill will be reintroduced in the next session of Congress and President-elect Obama has said that if it passes, he will sign it.

Meanwhile, a grassroots movement has begun to have Fred P. Hochberg nominated to be the next Secretary of Commerce. The openly gay Hochberg is dean of the New School for Management in New York.

The Obama transition team is scrambling to find a replacement for Bill Richardson who withdrew his name from the nomination.

“Hochberg is the most qualified candidate for the job,” the Boston-based Equal Rep said in a statement. Equal Rep works to get LGBT candidates placed in office.

From 1998 through 2000, Hochberg served as deputy, then acting administrator, of the Small Business Administration, an agency elevated to cabinet rank by President Bill Clinton, with more than 4,000 employees and 100 offices across the country. 

At the SBA, he directed the delivery of a comprehensive set of financial and business development programs for entrepreneurs, with particular outreach to women and minorities. He also served on President Clinton’s Management Council.

From 1994 to 1998, Hochberg worked as founder and president of Heyday Company, a private investment firm managing real estate, stock market investments, and venture capital projects. Prior to that, he was president and chief operating officer of the Lillian Vernon Corporation, where he led the transformation of a small family mail order company into a publicly traded direct marketing corporation, one of the great success stories of American entrepreneurship.

“It was devastating to learn that gay Americans wouldn’t have a seat at the table within Barack Obama’s Cabinet administration. They are the only minority group to have never been appointed in the history of the United States.” said Paul Sousa, Equal Rep founder. “Hochberg is supremely qualified and this opening is the perfect opportunity for our President-elect to show gay Americans they have not been forgotten and he is truly committed to equal representation.”

Latino groups want the Obama transition team to pick another Hispanic to replace Richardson – who had been the new administration’s most prominent Latino official.Women’s groups have said they want another female in the Cabinet.

There is no easy answer to this question and, to provide more fodder, Equal Rep is starting a campaign to have a gay replacement for Richardson.

Fred Hochberg, former deputy administrator of the Small Business Administration, former member of Clinton’s Management Council and current Agency Team Leader for the transition team, is also openly gay.

Equal Rep’s founder, Paul Sousa, points out that there is no gay representative in Obama’s cabinet and urges the President-Elect to act on the fact that LGBT people are “only minority group to have never been appointed in the history of the United States. Fred Hochberg is supremely qualified and this opening is the perfect opportunity for our President-elect to show gay Americans they have not been forgotten and he is truly committed to equal representation.”

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