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Maldonado meets with Trump over ag secretary job

December 29, 2016

Abel-Maldonado 4President-elect Donald Trump is considering appointing Santa Maria farmer and former California lieutenant governor Abel Maldonado as the United States secretary of agriculture.

Trump met with Maldonado on Wednesday at the president-elect’s Mar-A-Lago estate in West Palm Beach, Florida. Another candidate for the job, Elsa Murano, also met with Trump on Wednesday. Murano is the former president of Texas A&M University, as well as a former agriculture undersecretary for food safety.

The president-elect is considering four candidates for the agriculture secretary position, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune. All three of Maldonado’s challengers are reportedly Texans. Trump may be seeking an Hispanic to fill the position since he has faced criticism over a lack of diversity in his proposed cabinet.

Agriculture secretary is one of the few cabinet positions for which Trump has yet to make his selection. The agriculture secretary oversees the federal Food Safety and Inspection Service, as well as the food stamp program and the United States Forest Service.

Maldonado, who owns a family farming business, launched his political career by joining the Santa Maria City Council. After serving as Santa Maria’s mayor, he spent more than a decade in Sacramento, serving as an assemblyman, state senator and lastly lieutenant governor.

Then-govenor Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed Maldonado lieutenant governor after the Central Coast politician reached a late night deal to vote for a budget with tax increases in exchange for the creation of California’s open primary system. The open primary system has been unpopular among California Republicans.

In 2010, Maldonado ran for lieutenant governor and lost. He then ran for Congress in 2012 and lost to Rep. Lois Capps. Maldonado filed papers to explore a run for governor in 2014, but he promptly called off his campaign.

Andy Caldwell, the executive director of the Coalition of Labor, Agriculture and Business, and Santa Barbara County Supervisor Peter Adam are backing Maldonado’s bid for agriculture secretary.


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Andy Caldwell and COLAB need to know that there support of this person is not acceptable. If you are a COLAB member or have any affiliation with COLAB we should send a strong message that we are not supporting them any longer. Andy Caldwell has a responsibility to his supporters and his funders to shut his mouth and be neutral when it comes to a person who is so soundly disliked in this area. Tell Mike Brown that San Luis County is not happy with Mr Caldwell and tell him you are withdrawing support of any kind.


Mr Maldonados history is filled with disaster for his use of Illegal workers in his fields, his open primary push and success a disaster for Californians, his tax issues, his many labor violations in his family business, HIS SUPPORT OF A MAJOR TAX INCREASE IN CALIFORNIA the list goes on and on. This guy is a Disaster.


Tell Andy and Mike they can take COLAB and just shut it down they have been a complete failure anyway!


They won’t even take a position and ask all their members to use e-verify! Why? Because they know thats who they use including Mr Maldonado. It’s destroyed a once good CITY AND THEIR WORKIN ON SLO COUNTY NOW! TELL THEM TO TAKE A HIKE!! I would also like to know who their board members are!


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Another recycled politician that does not know when to take a curtain call … get the hook.


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“Another recycled politician that does not know when to take a curtain call”, that can be said for most of Sacramento.


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I think its funny; that regardless of Moldonado and his political stance, people view him as bad. And regardless of one’s political stance, most California citizens cant stand him. Is this fore-sight into the future of the U.S.A along with other obvious affiliations Trump has with disgusting men and women of the world? And i know; Obama has employed Bush era advisors for his cabinet. I know the the F.D.A board owns shares of Monsanto. I hope for a unification of the masses through transparency of people’s past.


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Seriously? Unable? Well it figures that Trump would consider him for I’m sure what he feels is the most insignificant post in his administration.


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I suspect Trump took the meeting merely as window dressing to show he does “care” about Hispanics in his cabinet. Don’t look for AM to get the offer, thankfully. IRS troubles, way too moderate for Republicans, doesn’t even have a college degree.


Now tell me with a straight face this isn’t Affirmative Action.


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Horrible choice! Maldonado epitomizes the “finger in the wind” politician. He can’t be trusted.


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More horrible than the CEO of Exxon with his Russian friends? lol


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More Horrible than Goldman Sachs president and chief operating officer Gary Cohn being offered the position of National Economic Council (NEC) director by President-elect Donald Trump?


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Well if that’s the case, Maldonado should fit right in working for Trump.


I think a lot of Trump supporters were fooling themselves by confusing his “outspokenness” for honesty. He simply told people what they wanted to hear for their short term support. He is already contradicting some of his campaign promises and covering it up by having his propagandists claim that “he never said that” or “that wasn’t what he meant.


It was an understandable mistake to look to Trump given the history of dishonesty by his opponent but, as is often the case in politics, as bad as someone may be, there is always someone worse. (No, I didn’t vote for either Clinton or Trump.)


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Don’t condemn prematurely. I did not vote for Trump but will give him a chance.


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Who better to run AG than a plutocratic HIspanic — whose family farming business was charged with worker abuses of fellow non-plutocratic Hispanics. Oh, and then there was the income tax evasion business. Go Donny Boy. You sure pick winners.


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I wonder how he feels to be Trump’s “Token Chicano”.


Does anyone know if Able ever settled his woes with the IRS?


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As a COLAB member I am disappointed in Caldwell’s support of Maldonado. He was one of the most untrustworthy, no principals “Republicans” to be elected in California. Why should he continue to be rewarded. And Peter Adam…he is basically supporting a Carbajal with a different label. Shame on you both!


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I have to agree, plus his open primary system idea is a disaster. If his ideas should he be appointed are equal, I am very concerned. Another politician with little connection to the regular, working, taxpaying citizen, but plenty of connections to the “special” people. The comment “political career” also worries me, political office was not supposed to be a career, but something you did for a short time then went back to your normal life, and Maldonado is certainly a career politician.


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I agree with your assessment of Maldonado; however, in Maldonado’s defense, untrustworthy, no principals is usually what Californians go for. We usually call them democrats, however. He was just adapting to his environment.


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