Who Is Laphonza Butler, California’s Senator-Elect, Anyway? – The American Spectator

While California Gov. Gavin Newsom is publicly engaged in mourning the passing of the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, privately, he’s likely celebrating. Her passing gave him the opportunity of a lifetime: Newsom has now hand-picked both of California’s senators. The most recent is Laphonza Butler.

His selection, announced Sunday, checks every progressive box. Butler is black, openly gay, and female and is, therefore, perfectly poised to “make history” in the headlines. There’s just one minor problem: Butler, who lives in Maryland, wasn’t even registered to vote at her California address until Monday — but, as far as Democrats are concerned, it really is a minor problem. (READ MORE: Biden Bypasses Senate Confirmation in Labor’s Julie Su)

In a press release announcing his selection, Newsom called Butler an “advocate for women and girls, a second-generation fighter for working people, and a trusted adviser to Vice President Harris.” She will, he claimed, “carry the baton left by Senator Feinstein, continue to break glass ceilings, and fight for all Californians in Washington D.C.”

Newsom’s selection of Butler makes total sense. Not only does she fit the box the California governor put himself in back in 2021 when he promised that Feinstein’s replacement would be a black woman, but she also has managed to become an influential activist as the president of EMILYs List, where she has championed pro-abortion women running for public office. While Butler herself has never run, much less been elected, for public office, she certainly knows plenty about the campaign trail.

Checking the Boxes

When Butler started working as a Democrat political consultant in California, she had already spent more than a decade as the leader of what became, under her watch, California’s largest labor union, the SEIU Local 2015 — a union that represents healthcare workers in nursing homes and home care. She had also already made national news. She had been one of the leading champions of raising California’s minimum wage to $15 an hour, for which President Barack Obama subsequently named her “Champion for Change.”

Butler had her hopes of gaining on the national stage, serving as a senior adviser not only to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign but also to Kamala Harris’ 2020 bid. As president of SEIU 2015, Butler had met and become fast friends with Harris, who was, at the time, district attorney. (READ MORE: San Francisco Values? Nancy Pelosi Explains It All for You.)

When Harris became the first Democrat to drop from the race ahead of her vice-presidential nomination, Butler turned to the private sector, working as the director of public policy and campaigns at Airbnb. Less than a year later, she was moving across the country for her next big campaigning job as president of one of the oldest and most effective PACs — EMILYs List, an organization dedicated to “changing the face of power, one Democratic pro-choice woman at a time.”

Butler likes checking progressive boxes, so she added one more to EMILYs List, working tirelessly to encourage “diversity” in the organization. During the 2022 midterms, the PAC sponsored hundreds of women, endorsing figures like Janet Mills, Gretchen Whitmer, Maura Healey, and Tammy Duckworth. (READ MORE: Five Quick Things: Thanks for Everything, Mitt — And Buh-Bye)

When Newsom started echoing Biden, specifying that he wanted a black female to fill the role, he was speaking Butler’s language — but that not every California Democrat liked what he was doing. U.S. Rep Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), who announced her campaign to replace Feinstein before the senator’s death, called the qualifications insulting: “The idea that a Black woman should be appointed only as a caretaker to simply check a box is insulting to countless Black women across the country who have carried the Democratic Party to victory election after election.”

Of course, once Feinstein passed, the Congressional Black Caucus asked Newsom to appoint Rep. Lee, stating that she is the “only person with the courage, the vision, and the record to eradicate poverty, face down the fossil fuel industry, defend our democracy, and tirelessly advance the progressive agenda.”

Newsom rejected Lee because, he claimed, his choice was merely an “interim” appointment until the seat is up for election in 2024. He didn’t want to give any candidate an unfair advantage — although Butler will be free to run for the office should she like to.

Newsom’s argument that he is being “fair” is laughable. If Butler runs in 2024, she’ll be the incumbent and will, practically speaking, have Newsom’s endorsement. After all, he hand-picked her.