You have to wonder what Dianne Feinstein, a no-nonsense senator whom leading Democrats often criticized for focusing on policy rather than politics, would have thought of the choice to replace her.
Laphonza Butler, the political organizer chosen by Governor Gavin Newsom to fill her Senate seat, commendably rose from poverty in Magnolia, Miss., where her widowed mother worked to support three children. She rose from heading a union local to becoming director of public policy at Airbnb. At age 44, her current job is heading the liberal feminist group EMILY’s List in Washington, D.C.
But her appointment is also marinated in identity politics at its most craven. Governor Newsom’s announcement emphasized that Butler would be “the first Black lesbian to openly serve in the U.S. Senate.” Unmentioned was the fact that her career was propelled forward by Vice President Kamala Harris, for whom she has been an adviser for the past dozen years and whose seat she will now hold.
The one thing that Laphonza Butler isn’t is a real Californian. She first moved there in 2009 at the age of 31 and left a dozen years later to work in Washington. She won’t have to move to Washington because she ALREADY is a Beltway swamp creature. She is registered to vote in Maryland but promises she will now reregister in California.
Dianne Feinstein was born in California and prided herself on intimately knowing every part of San Francisco when she was mayor there. Debra Saunders, a former columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, recalled to me how Feinstein “enjoyed tooling around town to check on neighborhoods and the sort of projects former mayors monitor. During her many editorial board meetings, she made a point of exhibiting her familiarity” with the region and state.
It may be from a partisan source, but California assembly Republican leader James Gallagher has summed up the motivation of Newsom to collect brownie points from the appointment:
Out of 40 million California residents, Gavin Newsom seriously couldn’t find one to serve in the Senate? Californians deserve real representation, not a political favor for a well-connected campaign operative who doesn’t even live here.
Indeed, while even a columnist in the liberal Los Angeles Times says Newsom “made a hash out of” the process of picking Feinstein’s replacement, you have to admire the cold-blooded politics of his choice if he wants to run for president.
Abortion rights? Butler heads one of the largest pro-abortion political lobbies in EMILY’s List.
African Americans and LGBTQ+ voters? Checked both those boxes.
Unions? Who better than a former head of the state’s largest labor union (Service Employees International) to represent the interests of union bosses?
Should Newsom make a sudden parachute entry into the 2024 presidential race, given Joe Biden’s weaknesses, his choice of Butler will be viewed as a master stroke. By making such an enormous down payment to every part of the left-wing coalition within the Democratic Party, he has sent a message that he not only celebrates their obsession with identity politics but that he is willing to keep his promises to govern from the left while once in office.