No one on the right had high expectations for California governor Gavin Newsom’s selection of the replacement for Senator Dianne Feinstein. The selection was inevitably going to be a progressive Democrat, and was likely to bring to the chamber some combination of the eloquence of Kamala Harris, the bipartisan goodwill of Barbara Boxer, the sparkling personality of Gray Davis, and the fresh face of Nancy Pelosi.
But somehow Newsom managed to dive below the low expectations and make a hash of things every step of the way.
Back in March 2021, when Feinstein was still insisting she intended to finish her term, Newsom pledged to select a black woman to replace her someday, making clear that his top requirements for the selection were skin color and gender. Even some of Newsom’s usual allies found this pandering ham-fisted, and more than a little insulting to Feinstein, just short of talking about her in past tense.
Then this September, Newsom promised that the person he selected would be an interim appointment and that the appointed senator would not run for a full term. “I don’t want to get involved in the primary,” Newsom told Chuck Todd on Meet the Press. “It would be completely unfair to the Democrats that have worked their tail off. That primary is just a matter of months away. I don’t want to tip the balance of that.”
But one of the three top Democrats running for the seat in 2024, Representative Barbara Lee, objected: “I am troubled by the governor’s remarks. 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 this country who have carried the Democratic Party to victory election after election.”
That warning of his “insulting” stance must have made the governor nervous. A few days ago, Newsom backed away from his previous stance. His spokesman Anthony York told the Los Angeles Times, “If that person decides she wants to seek a full term in 2024, then she is free to do so. There is absolutely no litmus test, no promise.”
This weekend, Newsom announced he was picking Laphonza Butler, president of the national organization EMILY’s List, an organization that aims to elect Democratic women who support taxpayer-funded abortion on demand.
Newsom’s selection is almost a parody of a pandering politician; instead of merely attempting to placate or satisfy a key Democratic Party interest group, he’s putting the head of a key Democratic Party interest group in the Senate. Still, give Newsom credit for perhaps the lone example of government efficiency in his reign. No more need for the middlemen of Democratic politicians; EMILY’s List now gets its own Senate seat directly.
Conservatives dreaded that Newsom would fill the seat with just another California progressive. Ironically, Butler is not really a California progressive.
She has lived in Silver Spring, Md., for at least the past two years and registered to vote in California only this week. As the perfectly absurd headline at the Maryland-based Daily Record put it, “California governor names Maryland resident Laphonza Butler to Feinstein Senate seat.” It’s more than a little ironic that, after years of Democrats complaining that California is underrepresented in the U.S. Senate, Newsom chose to effectively give Maryland a third senator.
But as our John Fund explained, if you see the process of governing as simply a matter of pleasing Democratic interest groups, Newsom hit a grand slam. His press release emphasized that Butler is a “black lesbian,” used to be president of the California Service Employees International Union, and, of course, was the president of EMILY’s List.
I mean, sure, the overwhelming majority of the Californians she’s going to represent have never heard of her, and she’s not really a Californian, but details, details. Her swearing-in was a great day for Maryland.
With one swift stroke, Newsom has ensured that the activist groups of the Left shall have a new birth of influence, and that government of the progressive lobbyists, by the progressive lobbyists, and for the progressive lobbyists shall not perish from the earth.