Ex-atlanta mayor reflects on her tenure at White House

Bottoms expects to remain an insider with president.

When former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms agreed last summer to take a job at the White House, she expected to serve just a few months through the midterm elections.

But she extended her tenure as director of the Office of Public Engagement and senior adviser to President Joe Biden several times. What she originally thought would be a November exit date stretched to the end of this month.

Bottoms is leaving the White House, she says, but not the president’s orbit. She expects to remain an insider and cheerleader as he con- templates a reelection campaign, but one who will no longer be obligated to make weekly trips to Washington that kept her away from her family in Atlanta.

“I will always be supportive of the president, and I look forward to us figuring out what that looks like in this next season of life for me,” she told The Atlanta Jour- nal-constitution on Monday.

Bottoms joined the admin- istration during a time when Biden’s approval ratings were sagging and Democrats worried he would drag the ticket down during the midterms. Bottoms said her plan upon arriving was to help engage people so that they understand what the White House is doing to improve their lives while also listening to their feedback to determine what could be done better, especially as the country entered a POST-COVID-19 era.

During her first days on the job, she worked from a closet at her home in Atlanta because it was the only place she could get reliable internet access. In Washington, she invited various groups to the White House for tours and meetings, and she launched an effort to host events in every state that will continue under her replacement, Steven Benjamin, the former mayor of Columbia, South Carolina.