Derek Douglas
Special Assistant to the President for Urban Affairs (since February 2009)
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(Center for
American Progress)
Chicago lover President Barack Obama has pledged to make cities a top priority after decades of relative White House neglect. To do that, he has appointed Derek Douglas as special assistant for urban affairs to the president.
Douglas spent the last couple of years lobbying for New York state in Washington. Before that he worked at the Center for American Progress, focusing particularly on how to cut consumers' credit card debt. He has also worked for the NAACP and as a counselor at the law firm O'Melveny & Myers.
Douglas earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan, where he was an economics major. After graduating from Yale Law School, he clerked for 3rd circuit judge Timothy K. Lewis.
In 1999, he joined the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund as an assistant counsel in New York City. He also worked for the Brookings Institution in the economic studies program.
When Douglas worked for the Empire State in Washington, his seven-person office fought to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program, to increase homeland security funding for New York and to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act and increase funding for New York schools.
Credit Cards
Douglas has long called on the government to protect credit-card users from hidden fees and mounting debt. He has challenged Congress and the president to create an incentive system that encourages credit-card companies to do the right thing. "The goal should not be to save consumers from themselves by making it impossible for them to get credit cards," he wrote in a Washington Monthly article in 2005. "It should be to give consumers the means to manage their credit wisely, and to reset the entire system so that consumers don't have to go out of their way to avoid being fleeced."
In the White House, Douglas will work closely with Adolfo Carrion, the White House director of urban affairs.
As a former New York lobbyist, Douglas has worked closely with several state officials. Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) has spoken highly of Douglas' work.
- Tumulty, Brian, "Spitzer's D.C. lobbying office gets high marks," Journal News, July 9, 2007
- MacGillis, Alec, "The Candidate: Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) The Idea: A Credit Card Rating System," Washington Post, Sept. 26, 2007
- "Director of New York Governor's Washington Office to Speak at Law School," US Fed News, March 6, 2008
- Center for American Progress YouTube web site
- Gordon, Robert and Douglas, Derek, "Taking Charge," Washington Monthly, Dec. 2005
- Weiner, Mark, "Agenda in D.C. is in "total disarray," The Post-Standard, March 13, 2008
- Smith, Ben, "Carrion appointed, and another lobbying exception?" Politico, Feb. 19, 2009
- Open Secrets web site
- National Journal
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