October 2, 2023

Who Is Laphonza Butler?

Meet the Black, LGBTQ woman replacing Dianne Feinstein.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty

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Two days after Dianne Feinstein’s death, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) has chosen her replacement. On Sunday, Newsom announced that Laphonza Butler, president of the pro-choice political action committee EMILY’s List, will fill the seat of the late California senator. Butler will be the second Black woman and the first openly LGBTQ member to serve as California’s senator.

“As we mourn the enormous loss of Senator Feinstein, the very freedoms she fought for—reproductive freedom, equal protection, and safety from gun violence—have never been under greater assault,” wrote Newsom in a statement. “Laphonza will carry the baton left by Senator Feinstein, continue to break glass ceilings, and fight for all Californians in Washington DC.”

As my colleague, Abby Vesoulis, wrote ahead of Newsom’s announcement, the selection of Butler makes good on his 2021 promise to appoint a Black woman to replace Feinstein should she leave the Senate early.

In September 2021, Butler became the first Black president of EMILY’s List. Her political roots are thoroughly in California, having served as a member of the University of California Board of Regents and Democratic strategist for Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2020 election. Newsom credited Butler’s work fighting for labor rights with playing a key role in his decision to appoint her. Some have criticized Butler’s history of working for tech giants, specifically as Airbnb’s director for public policy, and her work representing Uber.

Vice President Harris is expected to perform the swearing-in.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

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Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

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