Cassandra Butts

Cassandra Butts
Personal details
Born	(1965-08-10)August 10, 1965 New York, New York, U.S.
Died	May 25, 2016(2016-05-25) (aged 50) Washington, D.C., U.S.
Alma mater	University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Harvard University

Cassandra Quin Butts (August 10, 1965 – May 25, 2016) was an American lawyer, policy expert, and Deputy White House counsel. On December 23, 2008, Butts was selected by President-elect Obama to serve as Deputy White House Counsel, focusing on domestic policy and ethics.^[1] She was also on the advisory board for then-president-elect Barack Obama's presidential transition team.^[2] She stepped down as Deputy White House Counsel in November 2009 and served as Senior Advisor in the Office of the Chief Executive Officer at the Millennium Challenge Corporation.^[3] In February 2014, Obama nominated her to be the ambassador to the Bahamas, but by February 1, 2015, the Senate had not confirmed her to the post. She was re-nominated to the position on February 5, 2015.^[4]

Biography

Born in Brooklyn, New York, Butts moved to Durham, North Carolina, at age 9.^[5] She graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and in 1991 from Harvard Law School where she was a classmate of Barack Obama and the two became close friends.^[6]^[7]

Butts' first job was as a counselor at the Y.M.C.A. in Durham, North Carolina. From 1991-1992, Butts worked as a fellow with the National Health Law Program (NHeLP), a nonprofit organization advocating for the rights of low-income and underserved people to access quality healthcare. After college she worked for a year as a researcher with the African News Service in Durham. She was an election observer in the 2000 Zimbabwean parliamentary elections and a counsel to Senator Harris Wofford of Pennsylvania. Butts did litigation and policy work for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc, and spent seven years working a senior adviser to US Representative Dick Gephardt of Missouri.^[8] She became the Senior Vice President for Domestic Policy at the Center for American Progress.^[9]

Deputy White House Counsel

During her time as Deputy White House Counsel, Butts focused most on judicial nominations.^[10] Records later showed that in the days after Associate Justice David Souter announced his retirement from the U.S. Supreme Court, Butts was in frequent contact with President Obama's eventual nominee to replace Souter, Sonia Sotomayor.^[10]

Butts also had been rumored in February 2009 to be a candidate to lead the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.^[10] She also previously had been rumored to be a candidate to serve as United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and as White House Staff Secretary.^[11]

Millennium Challenge Corporation

On November 6, 2009, Obama named Butts to serve as a Senior Advisor in the Office of the Chief Executive Officer of the Millennium Challenge Corporation.^[12] Butts' departure was considered to be one of the highest-level departures up to that point from the office of the White House Counsel,^[10] and it was followed one week later by the announcement of the departure of Butts' then-boss, White House Counsel Gregory Craig.

Nomination to be Ambassador to the Bahamas

On February 7, 2014, Butts was nominated by President Obama to be United States Ambassador to the Bahamas. The Senate held a committee hearing on her nomination in May 2014, but took no action the rest of the year, and her nomination lapsed with the end of the 113th United States Congress.

With the new Congress, Obama renominated her to the post on February 5, 2015. The United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations reported her nomination to the full U.S. Senate on May 21, 2015. However, Butts' nomination was blocked by several Republican senators. First, Sen. Ted Cruz placed a blanket hold on all U.S. State Department nominees after he was upset with Obama for the Iran nuclear deal.^[13] However, after Cruz lifted those holds, Sen. Tom Cotton then stepped in and once again, to protest an issue unrelated to the specific nominees, blocked Butts' nomination and the nominations of ambassador nominees to Sweden and Norway after the Secret Service had leaked private information about a fellow member of Congress.^[13] Cotton later lifted his holds on the nominees to Sweden and Norway, but kept his hold on Butts' nomination.^[13] Butts told New York Times columnist Frank Bruni that she had visited Cotton about his objections to her nomination, and Cotton told her that because he knew that Obama and Butts were friends, blocking Butts was a way to "inflict special pain on the president," Bruni wrote.^[13] In Bruni's article, a spokeswoman for Cotton did not dispute Butts' account. However, Cotton's spokeswoman did emphasize Cotton's respect for Butts and for her career.^[13]

Butts died on May 26, 2016, still awaiting a Senate vote.^[13]^[14] For several weeks after Butts' death, her nomination had remained pending before the U.S. Senate on its executive calendar. Obama formally withdrew her nomination on June 9, 2016.^[15]

Death

Butts was found dead by her sister in her Washington, D.C. home on May 25, 2016. According to a statement from her family she had suffered from a brief illness.^[16] Bruni wrote that she had suffered from acute leukemia and had not felt ill until just beforehand.^[14]

After her death, Obama reflected on Butts' life in a statement: "To know Cassandra Butts was to know someone who made you want to be better. And Michelle and I were fortunate enough to count her as a friend for most of our adult lives. Cassandra and I met as law students, and we quickly discovered a shared passion for jazz – and for public service. It was a passion she'd chase for the rest of her life — on Capitol Hill, at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, at the Millennium Challenge Corporation, and as an advisor of mine — but above all, as a citizen, always pushing, always doing her part to advance the causes of opportunity, civil rights, development, and democracy. Cassandra was someone who put her hands squarely on that arc of the moral universe, and never stopped doing whatever she could to bend it towards justice. We lost her this week, at far too young an age. But along with all her friends and family, we find comfort in the knowledge that all the good she did for so many lives on. She made America better. She made so many lives better, including ours. We admired her so much. And we will miss her deeply."^[17]

References

↑ "Obama appoints Cassandra Butts as Deputy White House Counsel.". Think Progress. 2008-12-23. Retrieved 2008-12-23.
↑ "Obama Names Transition Team". Retrieved 2008-11-06.
↑ Cassandra Q. Butts-Senior Advisor-Millennium Challenge Corporation
↑ "Presidential Nominations Sent to the Senate". WhiteHouse.gov. February 5, 2015.
↑ Cooper, Helene (2008-11-27). "The New Team - Cassandra Q. Butts". New York Times. Retrieved 2008-11-24.
↑ "Obama's campaign staff a work in progress". Archived from the original on September 5, 2008. Retrieved 2008-11-07.
↑ "Obama names HLS alumni to transition team posts". Retrieved 2008-11-07.
↑ Slater, Dan (2008-11-06). "Black Lawyers Ready to Rise Alongside Obama". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2008-11-07.
↑ "Celebrating and Strengthening the Voting Rights Act". Retrieved 2008-11-07.
1 2 3 4 "Deputy White House Counsel to Leave for Anti-Poverty Job". The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times.
↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2009-07-29. Retrieved 2009-11-14.
↑ "President Obama Taps Cassandra Butts to Serve as Senior Advisor at the Millennium Challenge Corporation". WhiteHouse.gov. November 6, 2009.
1 2 3 4 5 6 "An Obama Nominee’s Crushed Hopes". The New York Times. 7 June 2016. Retrieved 2 August 2016.
1 2 Bruni, Frank (June 6, 2016). "An Obama Nominee's Crushed Hopes". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved June 7, 2016.
↑ "Presidential Nominations and Withdrawal Sent to the Senate". whitehouse.gov. 9 June 2016. Retrieved 2 August 2016.
↑ [Cassandra Q. Butts, Obama law school classmate and adviser, dies at 50 "Cassandra Q. Butts, Obama law school classmate and adviser, dies at 50"] Check |url= value (help). washingtonpost.com. Retrieved 28 May 2016.
↑ "Statement from the President and First Lady on the Passing of Cassandra Quin Butts". whitehouse.gov. May 27, 2016. Retrieved June 7, 2016.

External links

Barack Obama's Executive Office of the President

Office	Name	Term	Office	Name	Term
White House Chief of Staff White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy	Rahm Emanuel Pete Rouse William M. Daley Jack Lew Denis McDonough Mona Sutphen Nancy-Ann DeParle Rob Nabors	2009–10 2010–11 2011–12 2012–13 2013–17 2009–11 2011–13 2013–15	National Security Advisor Deputy National Security Advisor Deputy National Security Advisor for Iraq and Afghanistan	Jim Jones Thomas E. Donilon Susan Rice Thomas E. Donilon Denis McDonough Tony Blinken Avril Haines Douglas Lute^†	2009–10 2010–13 2013–17 2009–10 2010–13 2013–14 2015–17 2009–13
White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations	Jim Messina	2009–11	Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications	Ben Rhodes	2009–17
	Alyssa Mastromonaco Anita Decker Breckenridge	2011–14 2014–17	Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security	John O. Brennan Lisa Monaco	2009–13 2013–17
White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Planning	Mark B. Childress Kristie Canegallo	2012–14 2014–17	Deputy National Security Advisor and NSC Chief of Staff	Denis McDonough	2009–10
Senior Advisor to the President	David Axelrod David Plouffe Daniel Pfeiffer Shailagh Murray	2009–11 2011–13 2013–15 2015–17	White House Communications Director	Anita Dunn Daniel Pfeiffer Jennifer Palmieri Jen Psaki	2009 2009–13 2013–15 2015–17
Senior Advisor to the President Counselor to the President	Pete Rouse Brian Deese Pete Rouse John Podesta	2009–10 2015–17 2011–13 2014–15	Deputy White House Communications Director	Jen Psaki Jennifer Palmieri	2009–11 2011–14
Senior Advisor to the President and Assistant to the President for Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs Director of Public Engagement Director of Intergovernmental Affairs Director, National Economic Council	Valerie Jarrett Christina Tchen Jon Carson Cecilia Muñoz Jerry Abramson Lawrence Summers Gene Sperling Jeffrey Zients	2009–17 2009–11 2011–13 2009–12 2014–17 2009–10 2011–14 2014–17	White House Press Secretary Deputy Press Secretary Director of Special Projects Director of Speechwriting White House Counsel	Robert Gibbs Jay Carney Josh Earnest Bill Burton Josh Earnest Stephanie Cutter Jon Favreau Cody Keenan Greg Craig Robert Bauer Kathryn Ruemmler Neil Eggleston	2009–11 2011–13 2013–17 2009–11 2011–13 2010–11 2009–13 2013–17 2009–10 2010–11 2011–14 2014–17
Deputy Director, National Economic Council Deputy Director, National Economic Council Chair of the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board	Diana Farrell Brian Deese Jason Furman Paul Volcker	2009–11 2011–13 2009–13 2009–11	Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs	Phil Schiliro Rob Nabors Katie Beirne Fallon Amy Rosenbaum	2009–11 2011–13 2013–16 2016–17
Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors	Christina Romer Austan Goolsbee Jason Furman	2009–10 2010–13 2013–17	Member of the Council of Economic Advisors	Katharine Abraham	2011–17
Member of the Council of Economic Advisors	Cecilia Rouse	2009–17	Director, Office of Political Affairs	Patrick Gaspard	2009–11
Director, Office of Management and Budget	Peter R. Orszag Jack Lew Jeffrey Zients Sylvia Mathews Burwell Brian Deese Shaun Donovan	2009–10 2010–12 2012–13 2013–14 2014 2014–17	Chief Technology Officer Chief Information Officer	Aneesh Chopra Todd Park Megan Smith Vivek Kundra Steven VanRoekel	2009–12 2012–14 2014–17 2009–11 2011–14
Chief Performance Officer and Deputy Director for Management, Office of Management and Budget	Jeffrey Zients	2009–13	Deputy Director, Office of Management and Budget	Jeffrey Liebman Heather Higginbottom Brian Deese	2010 2011–13 2013–15
Director of Scheduling and Advance Director, White House Military Office	Alyssa Mastromonaco Danielle Crutchfield Chase Cushman George Mulligan Emmett Beliveau	2009–11 2011–14 2014–17 2009–13 2013–15	United States Trade Representative Director, Domestic Policy Council	Ron Kirk Michael Froman Melody Barnes Cecilia Muñoz	2009–13 2013–17 2009–12 2012–17
Cabinet Secretary	Chris Lu	2009–13
Deputy Director, Domestic Policy Council Director, Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships	Heather Higginbottom Joshua DuBois Melissa Rogers	2009–11 2009–13 2013–17	Staff Secretary	Lisa Brown Rajesh De Douglas Kramer Joani Walsh	2009–11 2011–12 2012–13 2014–17
Director, Office of Health Reform	Nancy-Ann DeParle	2009–11	Deputy Director, Office of Health Reform	Jeanne Lambrew	2009–11
Personal Aide to the President	Reggie Love	2009–11	Director, Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy	Carol Browner	2009–11
Personal Secretary to the President	Katie Johnson Anita Decker Breckenridge Ferial Govashiri	2009–11 2011–14 2014–17	Deputy Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change	Heather Zichal	2009–13
Special Projects Coordinator and Confidential Assistant to the President	Eugene Kang	2009–11	Director, Council on Environmental Quality	Nancy Sutley	2009–14
Director, Office of National AIDS Policy	Jeffrey Crowley	2009–11	Chief of Staff to the First Lady	Jackie Norris Christina Tchen	2009 2011–17
Director, Office of National Drug Control Policy Director, Office of Urban Affairs Director, Office of Science and Technology Policy	Gil Kerlikowske Michael Botticelli Adolfo Carrión Jr. John Holdren	2009–14 2014–17 2009–10 2009–17	White House Social Secretary	Desirée Rogers Julianna Smoot Jeremy Bernard Deesha Dyer	2009–10 2010–11 2011–15 2015–17

^*Senate-confirmation pending. †Remained from previous administration (s).

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