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.

  • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    48
    arrow-down
    12
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    the president of EMILY’s List,

    1. It’s a PAC

    2. To join is “only” $100 to the PAC… but then you need to donate another $500 to the PAC every year.

    3. Their main donors are billionaire CEOs.

    4. They were Sinema’s largest donor.

    5. It’s supposed to be for women, but the most money they ever gave was to Joe Biden.

    So not surprising they get a favor in return, hopefully people take two seconds to read up on the PAC

    https://www.factcheck.org/2022/03/emilys-list-women-vote-2/

    • OldWoodFrame@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      58
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      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
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        11
        arrow-down
        33
        ·
        edit-2
        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
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          15
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          1 year ago

          Would you have preferred they not have donated anything at all

          • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            arrow-down
            13
            ·
            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?

            • Zaktor@sopuli.xyz
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              arrow-down
              3
              ·
              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.