Activist Laphonza Butler, president of the political organization EMILY’s List, has been chosen by California Governor Gavin Newsom to replace Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, who passed away Thursday at the age of 90.
Butler will serve until the swearing-in of the next senator, who will be chosen by citizens in the November 2024 election – as required by state law.
EMILY’s List is a PAC (political action committee) committed to the election of Democratic women to Congress. Butler has led it since 2021, when she became the first African American woman to hold the position. On Friday, the newly appointed senator had called her late colleague “a titan of the Senate” and “a legendary figure for women in politics and across the country.”
A longtime ally of Vice President Kamala Harris, Butler previously headed SEIU Local 2015, California’s largest labor union, and then served as director of public policy and campaigns for Airbnb in North America as well as a member of the University of California Board of Trustees.
The new appointment means that in fact both senators representing California were selected by Governor Dem Newsom, as the latter had previously appointed former California Secretary of State Alex Padilla to fill the Senate seat that became available after Kamala Harris was elected vice president.
In the past, Newsom had stated that if either of the two California Senate seats became vacant, he would choose a black woman.
