President Biden appoints consultant and LGBTQ activist Joseph Falk to U.S. Institute of Peace

Joe Biden tells the courts to get out of his way.

Government affairs and public policy specialist Joseph Falk — one of Miami’s best-known gay political activists — could soon be adding another board membership to his already sizable schedule of organizational responsibilities, courtesy of President Joe Biden.

On Friday, Biden nominated Falk to the board of directors of the United States Institute of Peace, a national, nonpartisan institute that works with local partners in conflict zones abroad to prevent, mitigate and resolve violent conflict.

Falk, a superdelegate to the 2016 Democratic National Convention from Florida, was among the President’s top South Florida donors in 2020.

His nomination still pends Senate approval.

A licensed mortgage originator and consultant with the law firm Akerman LLP, Falk is no stranger to presidential appointments. Former President Barack Obama appointed him to the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board in 2014.

Falk is a past president and legislative chair of the National Association of Mortgage Brokers (NAMB) and authored a text that in 2008 eased passage of the national S.A.F.E. Licensing Act.

He has testified before both chambers of Congress on how to improve regulation of the mortgage industry.

Falk’s other board activities include service as the capital campaign chair of the Miami-based Frost Science Museum and a longtime membership to the national LGBTQ Victory Fund. He is also an alternate director with the Florida LGBTQ+ Democratic Caucus and a former board member and past chair of SAVE, a Florida-based LGBTQ advocacy organization.

Falk received recognition for his efforts in the South Florida LGBTQ community and for social justice in March 2015, when Florida International University presented him with the Stempel Award.

Congress established the U.S. Institute of Peace in 1984 as an independent, bipartisan institution devoted to serving as an intermediary among foreign governments, civil society and U.S. government officials. Its efforts span the globe, from facilitating reconciliation talks among local groups in Iraq and researching America’s policy options for China, Russia and North Korea to expanding women and minority participation in post-civil war Colombia and reducing the root causes of radicalization and the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria.