Neera Tanden

Neera Tanden was born on September 10, 1970, in Bedford, Massachusetts, to immigrant parents from India. She has a brother, Raj. Her parents divorced when she was five, after which Tanden's mother was on welfare for nearly two years before obtaining a job as a travel agent.

As a freshman at the University of California, Los Angeles, Tanden met her future husband, artist Benjamin Edwards. Edwards and Tanden both volunteered on Michael Dukakis's unsuccessful run for president in 1988. Tanden worked as a precinct leader in the Bel Air district of West Los Angeles where many households had already contributed to the Dukakis campaign.

Neera Tanden, who frequently describes herself as a progressive, belongs to the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. She credits her experience as a child relying on welfare programs as well as the formative moment of witnessing Anita Hill's testimony against Clarence Thomas in 1991 with setting her on the path of career in public policy.

She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1992. In 1996, she received a Juris Doctor degree from Yale University, where she was Submissions Editor for the Yale Law & Policy Review.

In 1999 and 2000, she worked for Hillary Clinton on her successful senatorial campaign in New York, as her deputy campaign manager and issues director, and as such, crafted policy proposals for the campaign. After the election, Tanden served as Senator Clinton's Legislative Director from 2003 to 2005.

In 2003, Senator Clinton supported Tanden's central role in the founding of the Center for American Progress, or CAP. Tanden worked as Senior Vice President for Domestic Policy, while also serving as Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and, starting in 2010, as Chief Operating Officer.

Continuing her association with Hillary Clinton, Tanden was an unpaid adviser to Mrs. Clinton’s successful 2016 primary season nomination campaign and unsuccessful general election campaign in opposition to Republican candidate Donald Trump, while also running the Center for American Progress. Tanden was considered a candidate for a top White House job, had Mrs. Clinton won the presidency. After Clinton secured the Democratic nomination for president in 2016, Tanden was named to her transition team.

In 2016, a hacker gained access to John Podesta's private emails (aka the Podesta emails), some which were emails exchanged with Tanden. In one exchange, on August 11, 2015, while discussing news that Harvard University law professor Lawrence Lessig was exploring a bid for the Democratic nomination, Tanden wrote of Lessig, "I fucking hate that guy." Lessig responded to the incident by saying that while he supported whistle blowing and a pardon of Edward Snowden, Tanden should not have to be burdened with having her private emails scrutinized and that it was not in the public interest. Tanden called the release of her personal communications, which often feature her blunt private assessments, a painful experience to endure.

After the 2016 election and Clinton’s loss, Tanden refocused the work of the Center for American Progress, aiming to have the think tank, and especially its advocacy arm (the Center for American Progress Action Fund), serve as a “central hub for Trump resistance” as well as playing a leading role in shaping the healthcare debate within the Democratic Party.

In 2018, reports emerged that Tanden had unintentionally revealed the first name of a CAP employee complaining of sexual harassment.

In 2018, Tanden endorsed the idea of a job guarantee to help revitalize economically-stagnant regions in the United States.

Having worked on passage of the Affordable Care Act during the Obama administration, Tanden has remained a strong proponent of universal healthcare, preferring a multi-payer model with an insurance mandate (similar to countries such as Germany) over single-payer healthcare and expressing skepticism over the viability of proposed Medicare for All bills. In 2019, the Center for American Progress proposed Medicare Extra for All, a blueprint for achieving a multi-payer universal healthcare system. Tanden has also praised the similar Medicare for America bill introduced in the House of Representatives.

On April 28, 2020, Tanden was named to serve on New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy’s Restart and Recovery Commission tasked with preparing the state to reopen after the novel coronavirus lockdown.