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As President-elect Joe Biden fills out his Cabinet, progressives have pushed hard on most major positions, save one: Commerce Secretary. Reporting on this role frames the seat as the liaison to the business community, who can “rebuild relationships” with massive corporations like BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, and Mastercard. (Were relationships ever frayed to begin with?) This framing makes the Commerce Secretary seem like a glorified middle-man between C-Suites and the White House, overlooking the actual functions of their Department, including the Patent and Trademark Office, the Census Bureau, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and crucial components of US trade policy.

Examples of House Democrats’ failures to take on this administration, from the Postal Service to Schedule F, are piling up almost as fast as delayed Christmas presents this week.

One role that remains unfilled will be vital to enacting Biden’s policy agenda: the administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). Although many Americans have never heard of OIRA, the office is well known among corporate lobbyists, who take full advantage of its ability to stop regulations in their tracks. Since the Reagan administration, OIRA has earned a reputation as “the death row of well-meaning legislation.”

Biden has long marketed himself as the unity candidate who could appeal to large swaths of the American electorate. So his selection of his old friend Tom Vilsack as USDA Secretary, whose only unifying characteristic is the disdain he has received from a broad coalition of advocacy groups, is perplexing to say the least.

On Sunday Congress announced that it had reached a deal on a $1.4 trillion omnibus spending bill that will keep the federal government funded through September. The package includes $1.375 billion for the border wall — sticking the incoming administration with a costly, unpopular, and inhumane project — and does nothing to halt President Trump’s attack on the civil service through the creation and implementation of the new “Schedule F” civil service classification.

Use this ongoing tracker to monitor the ties to Big Tech from individuals on the agency review teams, individuals who have been officially designated as nominees, and others who we suspect are jockeying for posts right now.

In an age of financialization and monopoly, ‘private-sector experience’ too often translates into those who successfully plunder for profit. Jeffrey Zients epitomizes that trend.

After news broke that Michael Regan, who currently leads the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, was the new frontrunner to lead the EPA — and was also being considered to be director of the EPA’s Southeast Region Office — environmental justice leaders in North Carolina began pushing back immediately.

Americans are fed up with their government working better for corporate America than it does for them. The Revolving Door Project’s proposed executive order on ethics goes further than any in history towards stopping the revolving door from spinning and shifting the balance of power towards the populace.

Environmentalists and foreign policy activists shouldn’t overlook appointments to agencies outside of their usual portfolios.

Pete Buttigieg is now a top contender for Secretary of Transportation in the Biden Administration, but his tendency to shift policy positions based on the preferences of large donors and industry lobbyists remains a significant concern if he were chosen to head DOT.

Concerns over the presence of corporate insiders in the Biden administration are coming opportunistically from so-called “right-wing populists.” This makes it all the more important for Biden and the Democrats to close the revolving door once and for all.