奥巴马内阁军团之劳工部长—— 希尔达●索利斯

美国劳工部长
就任日期2009年1月20日
出生 1957年10月20号（ 51岁） 美国加利福尼亚州洛杉矶
国籍 美国
政党 美国民主党
配偶 三阁下赛义德 
居住地  艾尔蒙特，加利福尼亚州
母校  聚加州波莫纳 南加州大学
专业  政治家 ， 政府分析师
信仰  罗马天主教

获劳工部长提名的索利斯坚决反对自由贸易。她于2000年首次当选为国会议员。在议员竞选过程中，她就旗帜鲜明地提出了反对中美洲自由贸易协定的竞选方案，并且以此争取到东洛杉矶的多数选票。对她的提名给反自由贸易人士发出了一个关于新政府贸易政策的明确信息。

与索利斯持同样意见的民主党前众议员邦宁(David Bonior)高度评价索利斯，称她“将会成为劳工阶层的代表”。此前，奥巴马曾考虑提名加利福尼亚州民主党众议员泽维尔-贝科拉(Xavier Becerra)出任美国贸易代表，但贝科拉表示他更愿意继续留在众议院。

众议员索利斯曾担任众议院能源和商业委员会以及教育和劳工委员会。她在此前的工作中大力倡导“环保主义”。消息人士称，那可能与她来自一个电池工人家庭有关。

Early life and education

Solis was born in Los Angeles, California as the daughter of immigrant parents who had met in citizenship class and married in 1953, Juana Sequeira (b. 1926, from Nicaragua) and Raul (from Mexico) Solis.Her father was a Teamsters shop steward in Mexico and after coming to the U.S. worked at the Quemetco battery recycling plant in the Industry in the San Gabriel Valley, where he again organized for the Teamsters, to gain better health care benefits for workers.Her mother worked for 22 years on the assembly line of Mattel Inc. once her children were all of school age and belonged to the United Rubber Workers.She stressed the importance of education, and was a devout Roman Catholic.

Hilda is the third oldest of seven siblings and grew up in La Puente, California.She had to help raise her youngest siblings, and later said of her childhood: “It wasn’t what you would call the all-American life for a young girl growing up. We had to mature very quickly.”She graduated from La Puente High School,where she saw a lack of support for those wishing to continue their education.

She was the first of her family to go to college,being accepted into the Educational Opportunity Program at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona (a program that assists low-income, first-generation college students who have overcome significant obstacles) and paying for it with the help of government grants and part-time jobs.She graduated from there in 1979 with a Bachelor of Arts in political science.She then earned a Master of Public Administration degree at the University of Southern California in 1981.

She is married to Sam H. Sayyad, who owns an automobile repair center in Irwindale, California.

Early career

She served near the end of the Carter administration in the Office of Hispanic Affairs,where she was editor-in-chief of a newsletter during a 1980–1981 internship,while working on her master's degree.At the start of the Reagan administration in 1981, she became a management analyst with the Office of Management and Budget's civil rights division, but her dislike for Reagan's undoing of Carter's policies caused her to leave during that year.

Upon returning to California, she became Director of the California Student Opportunity and Access Program, to help disadvantaged youths gain the necessary preparation for college;in particular she worked with the Whittier Union High School District.In 1985, she was elected to the Board of Trustees of the Rio Hondo Community College District,campaigning hard and overtaking an incumbent and other better known candidates to become the top placer.She was re-elected there in 1989.During her time of the board, she worked towards improved vocational job training at the college and sought to increase the number of tenured faculty positions held by minorities and women.She joined several California chambers of commerce, women's organizations, and Latino organizations.She gained added political visibility in 1991 when she was named a commissioner to the Los Angeles County Commission on Insurance by Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina, a political mentor.

California State Legislature

Opportunity presented itself to run for the California State Assembly when, after California's 1991 redistricting, the Democratic incumbent Dave Elder in Solis' 57th State Assembly district was shifted into another district where there already was a Democratic incumbent.In the June 1992 Democratic primary to fill the open seat, Solis had the support of Molina and U.S. Representative Barbara Boxer in an effort that focused on door-to-door campaigning.She came out on top of a four-way Democratic race, receiving 49 percent and besting her nearest competitor, future Assemblymember Ed Chavez, who received 31 percent. In the general election, Solis garnered 61 percent of the vote against Republican Gary Woods' 34 percent, and gained election to the Assembly.

In the State Assembly, Solis was prominent in the U.S. illegal immigration debate, backing a bill to allow illegal immigrants to attend California colleges as long as they were state residents.She served on committees dealing with education, labor, and environmental issues, including a new committee that dealt with groundwater contamination and landfill leakage.

After one term there, opportunity again beckoned. The Democratic incumbent in Solis' 24th State Senate district, Art Torres, relinquished that position when he got the 1994 Democratic nomination for the statewide office of California Insurance Commissioner (a race he would ultimately lose).Solis won the Democratic primary with 63 percent of the vote against two opponents,then won the 1994 general election getting 63 percent of the vote against Republican Dave Boyer's 33 percent.In doing so, she became the first Hispanic woman to ever serve in State Senateand the first woman ever to represent the San Gabriel Valley;she was also the Senate's youngest member at that time.She was re-elected in 1998 with 74 percent of the vote.

In the State Senate, Solis became well known for authoring bills to prevent domestic violence, and champion labor, education, and health care issues.She described herself as “a big believer that government, if done right, can do a lot to improve the quality of people’s lives.”In 1995, she sponsored a bill to raise the minimum wage from $4.25 to $5.75; it was strongly opposed by business organizations and the restaurant industry.When Governor Pete Wilson vetoed it, she organized a successful drive to force the issue to ballot initiative the next year, using some of her own campaign funds.The initiative's passing garnered her a statewide reputation.She also held hearings on labor law enforcement following a sweatshop raid in El Monte. She was also an environmental activist, a concern that stemmed from a childhood growing up near a La Puente landfill and enjoying weekly visits to the San Gabriel Mountains. In 1997, she pushed strongly for environmental justice legislation, specifically a law that would protect low-income and minority communities from newly located landfills, pollution sources, and other environmental hazards in neighborhoods that already had such sites.She got the bill, SB 1113, approved over the strong opposition of various business interests, water contractors, and some state government agencies, but it was then vetoed by Governor Wilson.She returned in 1999 with a somewhat weakened measure, which was signed by Governor Gray Davis. Calling for “the fair treatment of people of all races, cultures, and incomes with respect to the development, adoption, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws,”it represented the first legislation of its kind in the nation.

Due to her work in overcoming obstacles for environmental justice and for being “a politician who ‘hasn't shied away from challenging the old boy network both within and without the Latino community,’” in 2000 she was given the Profile in Courage Award by the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation.She was the first woman to win the award,and gained appearances in George and People and on Today.Now-California Democratic Party chair Art Torres said of Solis, “She’s going to be a national star.”