Laphonza Butler, the new senator from California, at an event for the Emily’s List organization last June.EVELYN HOCKSTEIN (Portal)
The United States Senate will have its first Black female representative. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has kept his word and chosen Laphonza Butler to replace Diane Feinstein, who died Thursday night at her home in Washington. After two days of mourning in the state, the local president’s appointment restored fragile Democratic dominance in Washington’s upper house. Butler, 44 and openly lesbian, is a well-known Democratic strategist who served as an adviser to Kamala Harris’ 2020 presidential campaign and worked for Hillary Clinton four years earlier.
Newsom assures Butler will take on many of the cases brought by Feinstein, who became the first woman to represent California in the Senate in 1992. “As we mourn the enormous loss of the Senator, the freedoms she fought for, reproductive freedom; Minority protection and gun laws are under attack. “Laphonza will pick up the baton left by Senator Feinstein to continue breaking glass ceilings,” the governor said in a statement released Sunday evening. Butler will remain a senator until January 2025.
It took the governor two days to make the decision. In a recent interview, Newsom said he was ready to act if Feinstein’s seat became vacant. In late 2020, the governor named Latino Alex Padilla to replace Kamala Harris, who left the Senate to become vice president. In 2021, she made a commitment to the progressive parts of the party that a black woman would be next.
governor @GavinNewsom They selected Laphonza Butler to complete Senator Feinstein’s term.
A trusted advisor for @VP Harris and head of the country’s largest organization dedicated to electing women, Butler will make history as the first black lesbian to serve openly in Congress. pic.twitter.com/NTPcK2Wtve
– California Governor’s Office (@CAgovernor) October 2, 2023
Until this weekend, the new senator ran Emily’s List, a Democratic organization that trains female political cadres. The group finds, recruits and prepares candidates to defend issues on the party’s agenda, such as the right to decide in their campaigns. The group is also an effective fundraising tool. In 2018, the association’s work enabled 100 women to be elected to the House of Representatives, a record number. Butler was the first woman of color and first mother to chair Emily’s List. The Democratic strategist is married to Neneki Lee, with whom she has an eight-year-old daughter.
Butler is originally from Mississippi and lives in Maryland. He has extensive experience as a union leader. By age 30, he was head of two chapters of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). It was this job that took her from the East Coast to the West Coast. In 2015, he managed over 180,000 staff and nurses in nursing homes and senior living facilities in California. In the other, she was head of the service department, which brings together 250,000 people in various professions such as janitors, security guards, window cleaners and kitchen workers. In 2018, Butler’s final year as head of that department, the union supported Newsom, who wanted to become governor.
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Now Newsom is returning the favor to a woman who, despite close ties to the Democrats, has not held public office in her career. But the governor’s decision also changes a race that had begun to replace Feinstein in the upper chamber. Three congressmen have been competing for the nomination for the November 2024 elections for several months. These are Barbara Lee, Katie Porter and Adam Schiff, one of the members of the congressional commission that investigated the attack on the Capitol on the 6th. January 2021.
A fourth participant enters this race by force. According to the AP, Newsom did not request that Butler remain on the sidelines. The new lawmaker must decide whether to launch a campaign to be elected to office in November 2024 for a six-year term. Applicants have until December 8th To for the campaign.
Newsom’s decision will also cause some problems within the black sectors of the California Democratic Party. The Black Caucus had told the president that it wanted Barbara Lee to replace Feinstein. Congresswoman Lee, who is Black, is an experienced representative who has represented the company in Washington for 25 years. In the polls, however, she trails her competition with Porter (17%) and Schiff (20%), with just 7% approval. Senator Butler gives oxygen and a new face to the party of Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi, two representatives of the gerontocracy in Washington.
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