Joe Biden’s administration has remained pretty stable during his term in office. At least, so far. His term hasn’t been marked by frequent departures by cabinet members or top officials and advisers. Most of them have stayed put, despite almost non-stop crises facing the administration. A few have been heading for the door recently, though, and that is capturing some attention. Is it time for normal burn-out to set in or is it more?

Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms is leaving her role as a senior official in the Biden administration. She made clear Monday she intends to stay involved in public policy as she returns to Georgia. Her role with the White House, as head of the Office of Public Engagement, was described as a temporary one. “It’s time for me to get back home, get back to my family and focus on the future.”

Biden recognized Bottoms as one who helped keep equity at the heart of his political agenda.

Biden announced on Monday that Stephen Benjamin, former mayor of Columbia, South Carolina, would take over as a senior advisor and head of the Office of Public Engagement, replacing Bottoms after she leaves in April.

“I have leaned on Keisha as a close advisor with exceptional instincts, and I am grateful to her for serving our nation with honor and integrity,” Biden said. “I wish her the best as she returns home to Atlanta to be with her family.”

He explained that the Office of Public Engagement serves as the “connective tissue” between his office and everyday Americans who struggle to be heard in Washington. I wonder if Biden truly understands the difference between equity and equality. Equity is the hot buzzword in this administration, an administration more concerned with hiring people based on how many identity boxes they check rather than qualifications. Equity usually means people are given special treatment or preference to compensate for past slights. If Biden was following in the footsteps of someone like Martin Luther King, Jr., a person he often references when he wants to virtue signal about race or equality, he would be more concerned about creating equal opportunities, not special preferences.

Keisha Lance Bottoms was on the short list of Biden’s vice-president choices. Her time as mayor was riddled with controversies. During the BLM marches and ensuing riots in downtown Atlanta, Bottoms at first came out against the violence but then switched to blaming Trump for inciting violence. In June 2020, many Atlanta Police Department officers went on strike to protest the charges brought against the officers involved in the killing of Rayshard Brooks. Bottoms declared Atlanta a “welcoming city” and signed an executive order forbidding the city jail to hold ICE detainees. She refused to support ICE and closed the detention center to ICE detainees. She strongly rebuked Governor Kemp when he announced the reopening of businesses in April 2020, saying it was too early. Bottoms rolled back some of the reopening measures, including a face mask mandate, and Kemp filed suit against her in Superior Court to invalidate her order. In other words, she’s a run-of-the-mill progressive. These are the people Biden caters to while in office.

Good riddance.

Georgia is an important state for Democrats. They are desperate to turn it from a now purplish state back to a blue state. So, giving Keisha Lance Bottoms a job in Biden’s administration was a logical thing to do. In replacing her, Biden found someone from another important state – South Carolina. Biden is stacking the deck in his favor for the Democrat primary in 2024. South Carolina is now the first state in the primary season and Biden only has one challenger so far. Marianne Williamson won’t be much competition but she knows how to get publicity and will use that to her advantage.

Statement from President Biden: “Mayor Benjamin is a longtime public servant, who has served the people of South Carolina for over two decades statewide and as a three-term mayor of Columbia. As a former President of both the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the African American Mayors Association, Steve’s deep relationships with communities across the country will serve our Administration and the American public well.

As mayor of Columbia, Steve focused on the economic development of Main Street, job creation, and maintaining a just, diverse, and trusted law enforcement department. He understands what Americans across the country expect and deserve from their government.

From Wikipedia:

The White House Office of Public Engagement is a unit of the White House Office within the Executive Office of the President of the United States. Under the administration of President Barack Obama, it was called the White House Office of Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs. President Donald Trump restored the prior name of the White House Office of Public Liaison and separated the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs. President Joe Biden changed the name to the White House Office of Public Engagement but retained Trump’s separate Intergovernmental Affairs Office in his administration.

I guess Trump wasn’t completely wrong about everything, eh? Bottoms referenced being a voice for African-Americans as she headed for the door. She also noted her access to both Biden and Harris.

“I was proud to bring a different voice and a different face to the White House: A voice from the South, an African-American woman in this White House. It was extraordinary,” Bottoms said, adding: “Sitting across from the president in the Oval Office, he knew that whatever my response was, I was speaking for so many people.”

As Biden’s adviser, Bottoms had a direct line to the president and Vice President Kamala Harris in serving as a public face of the administration at various press events. She most recently hosted an HBCU Student Journalist briefing at the White House with Harris last week.

“I’d never seen anyone like me inside of the White House, and here I stand many, many years later,” Bottoms told the young journalists on Feb. 23. “God always has these amazing dreams for us, and we don’t always know when they will happen.”

She’s leaving the door open for future political office, maybe governor in 2026. Someone better tell Stacey Abrams.