Biden To Nominate LA Mayor Eric Garcetti To Be U.S. Ambassador To India

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti will be nominated as the new United States ambassador to India, President Joe Biden’s administration announced Friday.

The U.S. Senate will need to approve him for the role. 

The White House touted the global aspects of Garcetti’s current job in its announcement. 

“As Mayor, Garcetti oversees the busiest container port in the Western Hemisphere, the largest municipal utility in the country, and one of the busiest airports in the world,” the announcement said. “He is the current Chair of C40 Cities – a network of 97 of the world’s biggest cities taking bold climate action and has led the organization’s engagement and expansion in India as well as C40’s global response to the COVID pandemic through the sharing of best practices and resources.” 

The Democrat’s nomination for the role has been rumored since May, and there has been much discussion about his aspirations for higher office since he became mayor in 2013. He was reelected to a five-and-a-half-year term as mayor in 2017; if confirmed to the ambassadorship, he will be the first L.A. mayor to voluntarily leave office before the end of his term in over a century, the Los Angeles Times noted. 

Garcetti, who served as a loyal Biden surrogate during the 2020 presidential election, was widely expected to be rewarded with a Cabinet position. But he announced in December that he would not be taking such a role and emphasized that he was needed in his city, which was in the throes of its worst COVID-19 surge at the time. 

Many suspected Garcetti was passed up for a Cabinet position because of intensifying criticism of his governing and issues in L.A., including the rising homelessness crisis in the city. Last summer, Black Lives Matter demonstrators congregated outside his house, demanding accountability for his heavy-handed use of police force on protesters. There were also sexual misconduct allegations against his top aide, Rick Jacobs, earlier this year. 

Biden’s team announced three other ambassadorship nominations on Friday: Denise Campbell Bauer for Monaco, Peter Haas for Bangladesh and Bernadette Meehan for Chile.