President Joe Biden has tapped Erika Moritsugu to serve as his liaison to the Asian American and Pacific Islander community, the White House announced Wednesday.

What You Need To Know

  • President Joe Biden has tapped Erika Moritsugu to serve as his liaison to the Asian American and Pacific Islander community

  • Moritsugu, a Capitol Hill veteran who also served as assistant secretary at the Department of Housing and Urban Development under the Obama administration, will be responsible for outreach to the AAPI community in this new senior-level role

  • The decision comes about a month after Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) and Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) voiced their frustrations about a lack of AAPI representation in Biden's cabinet

  • Biden is set to meet with the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus at the White House on Thursday, though Moritsugu is not expected to attend

The White House said Moritsugu will be "a vital voice to advance the President and the Administration’s priorities."

Moritsugu, a Capitol Hill veteran who also served as assistant secretary at the Department of Housing and Urban Development under the Obama administration, will be responsible for outreach to the AAPI community in this new senior-level role.

She currently works as the Vice President at National Partnership for Women & Families, and the White House says she "has spent her career in the federal government and politics fighting for social justice and the empowerment of communities and individuals."

The decision comes about a month after Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) and Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) voiced their frustrations about a lack of AAPI representation in Biden's cabinet and threatened to hold up his nominees unless Biden remedied the situation.

"There's not a single AAPI in a Cabinet position. That's not acceptable. That's what I told the White House,” Duckworth told reporters. "I've been talking to them for months, and they're still not aggressive, so I'm not going to be voting for any nominee from the White House other than diversity nominees. I'll be a 'no' on everyone until they figure this out."

Sen. Hirono, who was the first Asian-American woman elected to serve in the Senate, said she planned to join Duckworth’s protest, adding she "would like to have a commitment from the White House that there be more diversity representation in the Cabinet and in senior White House positions." 

The White House committed to appointing the liaison and making the role a senior-level one in the Biden administration, a decision applauded by Hirono and Duckworth. “I welcome the appointment of a senior level White House liaison to the AAPI community to further strengthen our voice,” Duckworth wrote on Twitter at the time.

Katherine Tai, who is Taiwanese American, is in the Cabinet as Biden’s top trade envoy. Dr. Vivek Murthy, the son of Indian parents, was confirmed Tuesday as surgeon general, a sub-Cabinet position. And Vice President Kamala Harris is of Indian-American descent as well. But the senators expressed concerns that they had no direct liaison within the White House to make their concerns heard.

Moritsugu is the vice president for the National Partnership for Women & Families, and prior to that held a number of roles on Capitol Hill, working for Duckworth, former Sen. Daniel Akaka of Hawaii and the Senate Democratic Policy Committee under former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. She also served in the Obama administration as an official at the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Biden is set to meet with the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus at the White House on Thursday, though Moritsugu is not expected to attend, sources said.

CBS News was the first to report the announcement.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.