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Former Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday that even though he has been living outside of politics since leaving the Department of Justice more than two years ago, he is looking to get back into the political fray.

"Up to now, I have been more behind-the-scenes," said Holder in an interview with Yahoo News. "But that's about to change. I have a certain status as the former attorney general. A certain familiarity as the first African-American attorney general."

He added: "There's a justified perception that I'm close to President Obama. So, I want to use whatever skills I have, whatever notoriety I have, to be effective in opposing things that are, at the end of the day, just bad for the country."

In the past few months, Holder has been working as outside counsel to the California legislature and other Democrats to undercut President Trump's policies in the state.

However, Holder lives and works in Washington, D.C. as a partner at Covington & Burling.

Holder explained he expected to stay out of politics since leaving the Obama administration but the 2016 election results changed his mind.

"I thought frankly, along with everybody else that after the election, with Hillary Clinton as president, I could walk off the field," he said. "So when she didn't win, I thought, We'll have to see how this plays out.'"

"But it became clear relatively soon and certainly sooner than I expected that I had to get back on the field and be in effective opposition," Holder elaborated in the interview, published Tuesday.

Holder said he will join efforts with the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, a new group backed by Obama to prepare Democrats for 2020 and districting redrawing in which he will "be more visible."

"We have come too far as a nation, sacrificed too much, made too much progress, to allow the state of our nation to be undermined by the extreme part of a divided minority administration," Holder said, calling Trumpism "the worst of us."

"If opposition is to be the course and it must be we must recognize and remember that the power of the American people has been too often underestimated. Once roused we are a mighty force," he said.

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Eric Holder ready to take on Trump - Washington Examiner

Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi arrives at the DCCC headquarters in Washington, DC on Nov. 8, 2016. Jim Lo Scalzo / EPA, file

Holder met last week with donors and labor leaders in Washington, D.C., and was joined by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe for small sessions with top party fundraisers in five major cities over the past two months.

Wherever hes gone, Holder said, hes been surprised that people really understand how important this is.

The National Democratic Redistricting Committee, which first launched in January, brings together under one roof the official Democratic committees responsible for electing governors and legislatures, along with related super PACs and other relevant groups.

Unlike past efforts in either party, that centralization will allow the group to coordinate Democrats full slate of redistricting efforts from lawsuits, to electoral campaigns, to ballot measures designed to change the redistricting process, to the data-heavy art and science of the actual map drawing.

Having all of those tools in one place that is a major innovation. That has never been done before, said Kelly Ward, the NDRCs executive director, who left a similar role running the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to join the new group.

Both parties gerrymander, but Republicans have been better at it, thanks in part to well-timed wave election in 2010. A

We have to do this as Democrats because were at a major structural disadvantage right now. The Republicans broke the system and we have to go in and fix it, Ward told NBC News.

Ahead of next years midterm elections, the NDRC is focusing on states that happen to have key races and be some of the most gerrymandered in the country, including Virginia, Pennsylvania, Florida, Wisconsin, Ohio and Minnesota. It is a perfect storm in all the right places, said Ward.

One potential hurdle for the group is its own incumbent lawmakers, who like having safe districts where they win by comfortable margins, even if it might be better for the party as a whole if some of their voters were drawn into neighboring districts which could help elect more Democrats.

Thats been especially true in legally protected majority-minority districts, where a so-called

Holder, who calls fairer districts a civil rights issue, acknowledged it will take some persuasion with some.

But he said he thinks times are changing as Democrats grow frustrated with being out of power, pointing to examples like Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA), who gave up some reliable voters in his district for the good of the party.

People in the House are tired of being ranking members they want to be chairmen. And this is the way in which we change their status, Holder said.

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Eric Holder Plans to 'Make Redistricting Sexy' - NBCNews.com

Uber hired former attorney general Eric Holder to give it some advice about its scandal-ridden workplace. Predictably, much of that advice turned out to be more politically correct than legally sound, much like the Justice Department when he was running it. Alas, the Uber board has already announced that it will adopt Mr. Holders recommendations.

In particular, Mr. Holder wants Uber to get its numbers right, by hiring more underrepresented minorities and women. And so: The Head of Diversity (or Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer) should set goals with respect to annual improvements in diversity and regularly publish data on Ubers diversity and inclusion numbers to judge how the company is meeting its goals.

Mr. Holder recommends that Uber adopt some version of the Rooney Rule, which is illegal, since it requires the sorting of job applicants by race, ethnicity, and sex. Perversely, he also recommends that Uber have blind resume review that is, resumes that have had all indicators of race, ethnicity, and sex removed from them which is a fine idea but flatly inconsistent not only with the Rooney Rule but with the rest of his recommendations. Those recommendations, for example, urge setting and meeting diversity goals and then rewarding and punishing (recognizing and holding accountable, meaning getting bonuses and getting fired, see recommendation II.D) managers based on metrics that are tied to improving diversity. In a word, quotas.

Candidates who are themselves diverse is one quality the board should look for in the new chief operating officer. Theres plenty in the recommendations on unconscious bias but nothing on the quite conscious bias that would be required by them. Tellingly, Mr. Holder criticizes the companys embrace of Meritocracy and Toe-Stepping as a corporate value.

There is a simple choice to be made here, folks, whether were talking about jobs or university admissions or government contracts or whatever. We can strive for nondiscrimination, which is what fairness and the law require, or we can mandate diversity, which inevitably means politically correct discrimination, which is in turn neither fair nor legal. We cant have both. Nondiscrimination will lead to more diversity if the status quo was politically incorrect discrimination, but it is nondiscrimination that must be the aim, not a predetermined bean-count.

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Eric Holder's Uber Diversity Advice | National Review - National Review

After four months immersed in the muck of Ubers corporate culture, former US attorney general Eric Holder and his colleagues issued a list of recommendations for the beleaguered ride-share company Tuesday (June 13).

If theyre implemented, the suggestionswhich run the gamut from when the office serves shared meals to major changes to the structure of its boardmay help Uber regain the confidence of its investors, employees, and customers. But they also form the template for the governance and human-resources policy of the ideal modern company, most of which should be considered by all corporations. Here are some of the keys:

Holder recommends that Uber install an independent chairman, long a cherished cause for good-governance advocates. An independent chair can provide oversight and scrutiny, and protect a company from self-dealing from its CEO. While Uber CEO Travis Kalanick doesnt also serve as chairmana common, and compromising, practice at US companiesthe position is held by Garrett Camp, who co-founded Uber with Kalanick. That close connection means Camp cant serve as an independent check on Ubers management, as Holder recommends.

Holder also suggests Uber add more independent board membersand there may be at least one board vacancy, as of June 13as well as create an ethics oversight committee. It should also beef up its audit committee with an independent auditor or ombudsman who can bring significant compliance or harassment issues to the attention of the Audit Committee without having to go through management or the CEO.

Advocates for effective management have understood for decades that executive pay should be tied to the performance of the company. In recent years however, theres been a recognition that tying pay to financial metrics like share prices or earnings-per-share can distort the goals of the CEO, pushing them toward short-term goals at the expense of the companys long-term health. In fact, research shows that companies that use non-financial incentives, like employee turnover, out-perform companies that dont. Holder recommends Uber include incentives for adherence to ethical business practices, and progress toward building a diverse workforce, part of executive pay packages.

Silicon Valley is wrestling with how to improve hiring practices, and Holders recommendations square with some of the best new practices urged by experts like Iris Bohnet, a behavioral economist at Harvard and author of What Works, a guide to promoting inclusive work places. Uber should implement hiring training, so interviewers are aware of their unconscious biases, and questions should be standardized, so candidate responses can be measured fairly, Holder says. Resumes of job candidates should be blinded, so their reviewers dont see clues about gender and race.

Holder also recommends Uber adopt a version of the Rooney Rule, a practice used in the NFL that requires that at least one minority candidate be interviewed for every opening for a head coach. Uber should include at least one woman or under-represented minority in every pool of job candidates. The company should also require that a woman or minority be included on every interview panel.

Read this next: How to really reform a toxic culture, a Uber or anywhere else

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The official recommendations for reforming Uber describe the perfect modern company - Quartz

New York Times

Uber Report: Eric Holder's Recommendations for Change New York Times Uber's reputation has suffered in recent months because of issues over its workplace culture. Credit Eric Gay/Associated Press. Here are the main recommendations for improving Uber's workplace culture as laid out in a report after an inquiry by Eric H ... Eric Holder is the disappointed dad Uber desperately needsQuartz Eric Holder Recommends Broad Set Of Changes To Uber's Company CultureNPR 10 Things You Need to Know From Eric Holder's Uber ReportFortune Washington Post -Breitbart News -Business Insider -Susan J. Fowler all 423 news articles »

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Uber Report: Eric Holder's Recommendations for Change - New York Times