New to DC, Buttigieg looks to build bridges with Biden plan
Two months into his job, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is forging a fresh path for his Cabinet role and in his life that could bridge gaps with Republicans when it comes to President Joe Biden’s agenda
April 5, 2021, 4:04 AM
9 min read
Share to FacebookShare to TwitterEmail this articleFILE - In this Feb. 5, 2021, file photo Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg speaks at Union Station in Washington. Two months into his job, Buttigieg is forging a fresh path for his Cabinet role and in his life that could bridge gaps with Republicans when it comes to President Joe Biden’s agenda. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)
WASHINGTON -- Pete Buttigieg was a few weeks into his job as transportation secretary, buried in meetings and preparing for the launch of President Joe Biden’s $2.3 trillion public works plan, when evening arrived along with a time to try something new in Washington.
Instead of climbing into the back seat of a black SUV like most Cabinet secretaries, he headed to a bike-share rack. Helmet on, and with a couple of Secret Service agents flanking him, he pedaled the mile-long trip to his home in the Capitol Hill neighborhood.
It wasn't a one-time stunt. On Thursday, Buttigieg arrived at the White House for a Cabinet meeting on his two-wheeler. And that wasn't his only “regular guy” moment. Dog park devotees in the District of Columbia have also seen him there, chatting up anyone from children to members of Congress such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.
Buttigieg first had his eye on the job of the man who is now his boss, Biden. Buttigieg's presidential campaign was surprisingly successful — he essentially tied for first with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in the Iowa caucuses and finished a close second to him in the New Hampshire primary — and he made a strong impression as someone who represented the future of the Democratic Party.
Now the man known during his campaign as “Mayor Pete" — he was the mayor of South Bend, Indiana — faces the first test of that potential in his first job in Washington: leading a Cabinet department with a $75 billion annual budget and a mandate to help spur an infrastructure program that Biden has likened to the the building of the interstate highway system in the 1950s.
He will have to navigate the complicated politics of both an entrenched bureaucracy at the Transportation Department and the fraught politics of a bitterly divided Washington.
He may have found a way by just riding a bike, which has gained fans from even skeptics in Congress.
“You've got to keep your head up,” Buttigieg told The Associated Press, explaining the path and potential dangers posed from unaccustomed drivers, but he said it can be a much quicker journey from point A to B.
Biden on Thursday tasked Buttigieg and four other Cabinet members — the “Jobs Cabinet” — with selling the administration's infrastructure and climate plan, a flood of money for roads, bridges, airports, broadband communications, water systems and electric cars.
But the plan has already hit a wall with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who objects to the corporate tax increases Biden says will pay for the plan and pledges to oppose it “every step of the way.” On the other side, Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, says the package should be significantly larger.
Daunting as it may seem, the challenge of helping build consensus fits the ambition of the man who had the audacity to run for president from the perch of being mayor of a midsize town in Indiana. When Biden selected the smooth-talking Naval reserve veteran for the transportation post, he praised him as offering “a new voice with new ideas determined to move past old politics.”
In an interview, Buttigieg said he believes that bipartisan consensus is attainable.
Joining Buttigieg in selling the plan are Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge, Labor Secretary Marty Walsh and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.
“I’ve had enough conversations, especially the one-on-one conversations away from the cameras with members from both sides of the aisle, to know there really is a sincere interest in getting this done,” Buttigieg told the AP. “Now politics can get in the way of that of course. But I think unlike a lot of other issues where there is just deep passionately felt profound disagreement about what to do, here there’s a really healthy overlap in terms of our ideas about what has to happen, even if there is a lot of difference on how to get there.”
Translation? Republicans like smooth roads and fast internet for their constituents, too. But so far, there is no indication Republicans share his position.
