The Washington Post, October 5, 2009 by Maria Echaveste
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/04/AR2009100401742.html
It may be that Chief Justice John G. Roberts will seek her support on major cases in hopes of reducing the stark division heretofore exhibited on the court. This may result in more moderate decisions than might otherwise have emerged.
Ventura County Star, September 18, 2009 by Scott Hadly
http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2009/sep/18/former-clinton-aide-calls-for-civility/
“Growing emotional as she recalled her childhood in Oxnard, Echaveste said, “I have had other people from other countries say to me there’s no other place a farmworker’s daughter who is of immigrant parents with no education could go from Channel Islands High School to Stanford to Berkeley and go on to work in the White House.”
CNN The Situation Room, July 16, 2009 Host Wolf Blitzer
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0907/16/cnr.04.html
I think the New Haven case has been misconstrued, because it was at bottom whether the city properly acted to throw out a test before it had been sued. That’s what the issue was. It wasn’t affirmative action, per se.
CNN The Situation Room, July 14, 2009 Host Wolf Blitzer
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0907/14/cnr.04.html
“But what’s really bothersome is … this notion that by exploring—by being proud of who you are, your diverse background, that somehow you’re supposed to leave that behind. And as I’ve said earlier, no justice does that. But what she was very clear about was that—in that very same speech—she said, I, as a judge, have to make sure that I’m not inculcating the biases or prejudices when I’m making the decision. And that’s what we expect from all of our justices.”
CNN The Situation Room, July 13, 2009 Host Wolf Blitzer
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0907/13/sitroom.02.html
“The attorney general, as we’ve learned over the years, is really the attorney for the country, not solely the president’s attorney general. And that means that he has an obligation if the facts warrant it to ensure that no laws were broken by high ranking officials. I think, in this situation, what we need to understand and what he may have to do is: what are the obligations the CIA had to inform Congress? And then, if there was an obligation, why wasn’t it done?”
The Washington Post, May 27, 2009 by Maria Echaveste
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/26/AR2009052601170_pf.html
Even if she is not a governor or an elected official, she is someone who has a breadth of life experience that can only inform her interpretation of the Constitution. Her story is the quintessential American success story, built on hard work, and exemplifying values that conservatives have at times tried to claim as their own—which, of course, they are not.
NPR, All Things Considered, May 11, 2009 Host Michelle Norris
http://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=104032583&m=104032563
Maria Echaveste: I read it as he was looking for someone who understood that these decisions were not abstract notions to be determined solely, solely upon the strict legal reasoning without any consideration of the real life consequences when you make a decision. People who are going to think critically: what does this mean? How does this impact people’s real lives? Because that is what the Supreme Court does.
Chris Edley: The easy questions are dealt with by the lower courts. It’s the hardest questions and the most important questions that get before the Supreme Court, and, on those questions, it is unusual if strict doctrine gives you the answer by itself. You can’t just look at the page and find the answer. You have to think about what’s the purpose of the law to make it alive.
San Francisco Chronicle, February 12, 2009 by Tyche Hendricks
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/02/12/BATJ15RJGU.DTL&type=printable
“Here is a long list of administrative actions that can be taken to improve performance on the mission that’s important at Homeland Security with respect to illegal immigration but also services for legal immigrants,” said Echaveste, who teaches immigration law and policy…. “What’s distressing about this very thorough analysis is that people have tried over the last three or four years to communicate suggestions such as this and it fell on deaf ears.”
San Francisco Chronicle, Dec. 10, 2008 by Zachary Coile
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/10/MNG314KQQF.DTL
Other Bay Area residents who have been mentioned for top jobs include Maria Echaveste, a former Clinton White House adviser and lecturer at UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law, for labor secretary.
The American Prospect, September 22, by Maria Echaveste
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=african_american_and_immigrants_the_common_good
“By focusing on the illegal status of millions of people, the vast majority of whom are workers, and their violation of civil immigration laws, the public fails to ask the real questions: Why do employers prefer immigrants to native-born Americans? Why don’t these jobs pay more, be safer, and offer benefits, including health care? Why is it that communities are subsidizing the lack of health care and housing offered by the meat-packing, agricultural, construction, and hospitality industries?”
The Press-Enterprise, June 11, by Douglas Quan
http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_N_keynote12.42e4a55.html
A former senior White House and U.S. Department of Labor official who was scheduled to deliver the keynote address at one of UC Riverside’s commencement ceremonies this weekend has pulled out over an ongoing labor dispute. Maria Echaveste … was supposed to address graduates from the psychology, sociology, religious studies and women’s studies departments.
PBS, NewsHour With Jim Lehrer, June 4
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/jan-june08/obamahistory_06-04.html
“Unfortunately, there continue to be some people who can’t get past looking at someone because of their ethnicity or the color of the skin. But there are many more people—and that’s what’s so wonderful about this country—there’s an optimism and a hope. Remember, elections are about the future. And the American people, through this long, contorted campaign process, have decided that Senator Obama represents the future that they want to believe in.”
PBS Bill Moyers Journal, May 16
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/05162008/watch.html
Maria Echaveste: Hillary Clinton did not get a fair chance with both media perspectives and the subtleties on gender discrimination. I think … there’s a zone of protection around Senator Obama on race where none existed on gender.… It also raised all kinds of pretty misogynistic views about women and that woman in particular. And a lot of women are angry about it.
Chris Edley: The real challenge of leadership is to find ways to talk about the things that divide us and help us figure out how to bridge those not by ignoring them but by, in some sense, overcoming them, resolving them, accommodating them.… I’m not for ignoring race in the sense that it can’t be ignored. It’s going be there no matter what. If you ignore it in the sense of simply not talking about it then you’ve failed to do anything effectively to deal with the cancer.
Salon.com, March 9, by Joan Walsh
http://www.salon.com/opinion/walsh/election_2008/2008/03/09/policylink/
“We’ve been having this dialogue, black-brown, from the day we met. We care passionately about finding ways in our own work to try and make America live up to its promise. What I’ve learned is, the tensions are real, but you can overcome.”
NPR, All Things Considered, March 12, by Michele Norris
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88154039
Echaveste: She diminished herself. Basically she says that I was selected as a vice presidential nominee because I was a woman. It had nothing to do with qualification. And I found that just appalling. And so she crossed a line because in some way she left the impression that somehow Senator Obama has reached this particular point solely because he’s black and that’s just unacceptable.
Edley: It’s also incorrect…. Barack did not call her a racist. I don’t think anyone in the campaign that I know of has called her a racist. I think that it’s undoubtedly the case that his race, like Hillary’s gender, has been a political plus and a political minus. I think that if this year has taught us anything it’s that we need to revisit a lot of the conventional wisdom about the way that race can play into politics.
New York Times, Feb. 4, by Jodi Kantor
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/04/us/politics/04family.html?sq=Edley&st=nyt&scp=1&pagewanted=all
“It’s not easy,” Ms. Echaveste, who is a paid consultant to Mrs. Clinton, said in a joint telephone interview with her husband, who advises Mr. Obama. “You’re having a discussion and your husband is basically saying that your candidate doesn’t have a moral compass.”
ABC News, Feb. 5, by Jake Tapper, Susan Rucci, and Cindy Smith
http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=4242997
“He [Obama] operates from an inner framework of values, a moral compass that I think is absolutely critical in that job,” said Edley, who taught Obama in law school.
“I sort of bristle a little bit when Christopher talks about Obama’s centeredness and sense of values and there is an implied criticism that Hillary Clinton doesn’t know who she is and doesn’t have values,” Echaveste said.
Daily Californian, Feb. 5, by Stephanie M. Lee
http://www.dailycal.org/article/100235
“I’ve worked with now a half-dozen presidential candidates as well as two presidents, and (Obama) is one of the three or four most astonishing minds that I’ve encountered in public life,” said Edley.
“Because I’ve been the deputy chief of staff to the president for two-and-a-half years, where you see up and close what the job requires, I just concluded that as much as I liked Obama, she was more ready,” said Echaveste.