Former Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius was on a short list for an Obama administration cabinet position in September 2008, but it wasn’t the one she ultimately got.
Emails disclosed by WikiLeaks show that President Barack Obama’s advisers initially considered Sebelius to head the Environmental Protection Agency, rather than Health and Human Services.
The list of EPA candidates also included Christine Gregoire, then governor of Washington state, and Michael Bloomberg, then mayor of New York.
The job ultimately went to Lisa Jackson, commissioner of New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection, and Sebelius went on to implement Obama’s signature and hotly debated health care overhaul, the Affordable Care Act.
The list of EPA candidates also included Christine Gregoire, then governor of Washington state, and Michael Bloomberg, then mayor of New York.
Sebelius, a Democrat, led HHS from 2009 to 2014 and was governor of Kansas from 2003 to 2009.
In a September 2008 email exchange, Obama advisers Cassandra Butts and John Podesta discussed the “top candidates” for the EPA and Department of Energy posts.
Podesta, now Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, at the time recommended adding Katie McGinty to the list of EPA contenders. McGinty is currently challenging incumbent Republican Sen. Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania.
Among those considered for the Energy post: then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, then-Gov. Brian Schweitzer of Montana and General Electric Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt.
Butts, a Harvard law classmate of Obama’s and his former deputy White House counsel, died in May at age 50.
Curtis Tate: 202-383-6018, @tatecurtis
Comments