Most diverse Cabinet in history still incomplete

WASHINGTON -- Three months after taking office, President Obama will convene his first Cabinet meeting on Monday — still one seat short of a complete Cabinet.

Eager to promote budget-cutting efforts by all federal agencies, Obama will hold the meeting a day before the Senate Finance Committee is scheduled to vote on his last nominee, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, as secretary of Health and Human Services.

Outside experts say Obama's Cabinet is among the latest to be filled since Inauguration Day was moved up six weeks, to Jan. 20, in 1937. The delays were caused by ethics problems that forced his first nominees for the Commerce and Health and Human Services departments to withdraw, and the more extensive vetting process that followed.

If she is confirmed by the Senate, Sebelius will complete a Cabinet that experts say is the most diverse in history. It will have seven women and nine racial and ethnic minorities among its 21 members — and only eight white men. Average age: 54.

"He has a majority-minority Cabinet," says Paul Light, an expert on presidential appointments at New York University. "In terms of white males, they're in the minority now."

Bill Clinton, the last Democratic president, had five women and six minorities in a first Cabinet that he said "looks like America" — one more in each category than George W. Bush had. Obama has shattered those numbers:

• There will be seven women with Sebelius, led by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

• There are four African-Americans, including the first as attorney general, Eric Holder. There are three Asian-Americans and two Hispanics.

• Seven Cabinet members are in their 40s, eight in their 50s and six in their 60s. The youngest is Peter Orszag, director of the Office of Management and Budget, who just turned 40. The oldest is Eric Shinseki, 66, who heads the Department of Veterans Affairs.

• The closest Obama comes to having a southerner is former Dallas mayor Ron Kirk, the U.S. trade representative. Three each hail from California, New York, the District of Columbia and Obama's home state of Illinois.