San Francisco

Laphonza Butler will replace deceased California Senator Dianne Feinstein in the Senate, Governor Gavin Newsom of California announced on Sunday (October 1). 

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Butler, the first openly Lesbian senator to represent California, is likely to be sworn in on Wednesday. It is not clear whether Butler will run to serve a full six-year term.

Butler, 44, has been in politics for fifteen years. She is a former leader of the state's largest labour union. She has also been an adviser to the US Vice President Kamala Harris. 

Also read | US: California’s longest-serving Senator Dianne Feinstein dies at 90

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In 2021, Laphonza Butler became the president of Emily's List, a fund-raising organisation that works towards electing female candidates and supporters of abortion rights.

Butler was the first Black woman to lead the Emily's List.

Senator Feinstein died at 90 on Thursday in Washington, DC.

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Her body was flown over the weekend back to San Francisco, where a memorial service has been scheduled for later this week.

"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," Newsom said in a statement. "Laphonza will carry the baton left by Senator Feinstein, continue to break glass ceilings and fight for all Californians in Washington, D.C."

What does it mean?

Butler's appointment would bring a difference as compared to the late Senator Feinstein, a wealthy centrist who was raised in an affluent San Francisco family, and graduated from Stanford University.

Butler's humble origins have now come into the spotlight. 

She is the daughter of a woman, who after the loss of her husband, raised Butler while working as a security guard, and among other jobs as a gas station cashier, home-care worker and teaching assistant.

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Before taking a role at Emily's List, she spent nearly two decades at the Service Employees International Union.

She organised nurses and janitors at the SEIU before moving in 2009 to California.

In California, she rose to eventually lead the largest union in California, a branch of S.E.I.U. representing 325,000 home-care workers. Her accomplishments in California included the passage of a $15 minimum wage.

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