[3] Holt Baker became an organizer with American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) in the late 1980s.

She began organizing public sector employees for the state of California,[4] and eventually was hired as an international union staff representative.

She rose to become an "area director" in California, overseeing AFSCME's collective bargaining efforts for public employee locals and leading the union's political operations for statewide and federal races.

[7] Holt Baker's success in leading this campaign caused her to be named an executive assistant to AFL-CIO president John Sweeney in 1999.

[10] As a top aide to Sweeney, Holt Baker was repeatedly tapped to head up AFL-CIO political efforts.

The complaint, which was eventually dismissed, alleged that VFWF and the other 527s were illegally coordinating their electoral efforts with John Kerry's presidential campaign.

[18] AFL-CIO President John Sweeney immediately announced that he intended to have the federation executive council approve Holt Baker to fill the remainder of Chavez-Thompson's unexpired term.

Longtime union democracy activist Harry Kelber has argued that Chavez-Thompson should not have resigned immediately, but rather given the Executive Council several months' notice so that additional candidates could be recruited and/or their qualifications considered; that the timing of Chavez-Thompson's retirement gave only a few days' notice to the Executive Council before an election was held; and that the appointment of a staff member as an elected leader violates basic principles of union democracy.

[19] Holt Baker was re-elected to the position of executive vice president for a full four-year term at the AFL-CIO's regularly scheduled quadrennial convention in September 2009.