Senate Committee Holds Hearing To Consider LA Mayor Eric Garcetti for India Ambassadorship

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing to consider LA Mayor Eric Garcetti for the position of India Ambassador. With President Trump’s recent visit, there is strong pushback against his policies in regards to trade and immigration. Mr.Garcetti will have plenty of challenges ahead on this front if he accepts the nomination, but it is also an opportunity that few city mayors would be given access to by any other president.”

The “eric garcetti ambassador to india” is a topic that has been brought up in the Senate Committee Hearing. The hearing will be held on Thursday, September 27th at 10:00 am EST.

(CBSLA) – LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) – The Senate Foreign Relations Committee took up Mayor Eric Garcetti’s nomination as ambassador to India on Tuesday, five months after President Joe Biden announced it.

The meeting was adjourned without a vote, and the committee’s chair submitted further questions to Garcetti and two other ambassador candidates who were being reviewed on Tuesday and Wednesday.

On December 9, 2021, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti addresses at Los Angeles World Airports. (Getty Images/Brittany Murray/Long Beach Press-Telegram) )

“Few countries are more important to the future of American security and prosperity than India,” Garcetti said in his opening remarks to the committee.

Garcetti went to India for the first time as a teenager with his parents, then again in 1990 as a guest of Ambassador William Clark Jr., whose son was Garcetti’s college roommate. He plans to study Hindi and Urdu in college, as well as Indian and Cultural Religious History, as a result of his trip.

The mayor said, “Today, the essential character of that strategic alliance is deeply embedded here in Washington and in New Delhi.” “If confirmed, I will work to further our ambitious bilateral cooperation, which is bound together by a free, open, and inclusive Indo-Pacific region.”

“Even with a pandemic, our bilateral trade is likely to reach a record this year,” Garcetti continued. “If confirmed, I aim to pursue an ambitious economic cooperation with India to lower market barriers, strengthen free trade, and develop decent, middle-class American jobs.”

Garcetti said he would collaborate with India on a “similarly aggressive strategy to boosting green energy,” citing his experience tackling climate change in Los Angeles, which includes putting the city on pace to attain 100 percent renewable energy by 2035.

On July 9, Biden announced Garcetti’s candidacy. Garcetti is in his last year as mayor, since he is not eligible to compete for re-election owing to term restrictions. Unless he quits sooner for the ambassadorship, he is due to leave office in December 2022.

Garcetti’s responsibilities included overseeing the Western Hemisphere’s busiest container port, the Port of Los Angeles; the country’s largest municipal utility, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power; one of the busiest airports, Los Angeles International Airport; and his time as chair of the second-busiest transit agency, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, according to the White House announcement in July.

Garcetti was also praised by the White House for managing Los Angeles’ successful bid to host the 2028 Olympics and co-founding Climate Mayors, a group of 400 mayors throughout the United States that approved the Paris Climate Agreement.

Garcetti also worked on Biden’s presidential campaign as a national co-chair.

Senator Jeanne Shaheen, D-New Hampshire, questioned Garcetti on sexual harassment allegations and a culture of silence in his workplace, which Garcetti insists he has not observed. In a complaint filed by a Los Angeles Police Department officer, his former advisor, Rick Jacobs, has been accused of sexual harassment.

According to the officer, Garcetti was aware of the misbehavior but chose to ignore it. The accusation has been refuted by Garcetti.

Garcetti reacted to Shaheen by stating that sexual harassment is something for which he has “zero tolerance.”

“I want to state categorically that I never observed, nor was it brought to my notice, the claimed conduct.” “I also want to promise you that if that had been the case, I would have acted quickly to stop it,” Garcetti added.

After the hearing, Naomi Seligman, a former Garcetti communications director who claims she was forcefully kissed by Jacobs and that Garcetti was aware of Jacobs’ alleged habit of harassment, tweeted at Shaheen:

“What about the victims and our sworn evidence regarding the abuse we observed and that (Garcetti) enabled?” We’re quite disappointed in you. Human rights are important in our country and throughout the globe. #metoo.”

According to New York Magazine, Seligman’s lawyer wrote to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee accused Garcetti of covering up Jacobs’ actions.

Several senators inquired about Garcetti’s plans to enhance human rights in India, citing a new citizenship legislation that streamlines the process for non-Muslims from three neighboring nations. Garcetti touted his master’s degree in Human Rights and International Law, emphasizing that human rights will be a “core element” of his interaction with India.

If Garcetti is approved by the United States Senate, Council President Nury Martinez will serve as acting mayor until the council appoints an interim mayor or a special election is called.

Because the mayoral primary is already scheduled for June 2022, the council is unlikely to call a special election.