California Gov. Gavin Newsom will appoint Laphonza Butler, the president of EMILY’s List, to fill the late Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s Senate seat, his office confirmed Sunday evening.

Butler will become the sole Black female senator serving in Congress and only the third in US history. Feinstein, the longest-serving female US senator in history, died last week at 90.

The selection of Butler, first reported by Politico, comes as Democrats hold a narrow Senate majority and uncertainty looms over New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez’s political future amid outcry from his Democratic colleagues over his federal indictment.

Butler has been the president of EMILY’s List, which works to elect Democratic women who support abortion rights, since the group’s board of directors appointed her in 2021, when she became the first woman of color to lead the organization. She previously worked at Airbnb as a director of public policy and campaigns and advised Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2020 presidential campaign, but much of her background is in the labor movement, serving as a union president in California.

  • OldWoodFrame
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    1 year ago

    To be fair on 5, of course the most money a PAC gives is to the largest race at the highest level, and Kamala was on the ticket as well, and it was for defeating the guy who single handedly overturned Roe.

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      To be fair…

      The entire point of the PAC is to donate to women who will fight for women to have access to abortion…

      But their biggest recipient is a man…

      Although he’s better than Sinema, who got most of her money from this PAC and then continues to threaten to fillibuster any codifying of abortion access.

      The takeaway here is either the people running the PAC are terrible at their job, or not trying to do what they tell everyone they’re trying to do when asking for donations. And for some reason that qualifies their president for an “interm” Senate seat.

      This is nothing but political back patting and payback for giving money to the party’s preferred candidate even tho it made zero logical sense.

      • BB69@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Would you have preferred they not have donated anything at all

        • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Than being Sinema’s largest donor?

          Yes, absolutely I would have preferred they didn’t help her win the primary and then general…

          For Biden? He got 10% of what was donated to the PAC, seems kind of inefficient.

          And again, not what the people who gave money to the PAC thought it would be used for.

          You don’t see any problems with any of that?

          • Cleverdawny
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            1 year ago

            For all of Sinemas flaws I don’t recall her being anti choice.

          • Zaktor@sopuli.xyz
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            1 year ago

            That was in her run before she became the DINO queen. They’ve since pulled support because she sucks. Before she was elected she appeared to be ok. Not great, but not obviously shit.

      • FfaerieOxide@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        But their biggest recipient is a man…

        …who can sign a codified Roe bill.

        Based on everything else you say it certainly sounds like EMILY sucks but men can sign reproductive freedom legislation just as well as women. If abortion rights were truly EMILY’s goal