It’s Senator Laphonza Butler till the next election
You might ask – who’s that? I certainly had never heard of her before. But Butler fits the previously declared identity boxes – a black woman- and Newsom has said she’s a temporary placeholder. However, she’s certainly not barred from running in 2024 should she so choose.
But Butler is not merely her intersectional identity boxes:
California Gov. Gavin Newsom will appoint EMILY’s List President Laphonza Butler to fill the seat of the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, elevating the head of a fundraising juggernaut that works to elect Democratic women who support abortion rights, according to a person familiar with the decision.
Butler was also involved in Kamala Harris’ failed 2020 presidential campaign. The campaign was disastrous, but then again she ended up as VP.
Butler is apparently a lesbian, and although I do not care one way or the other, that’s another identity box she checks. However, there was a little problem with the issue of residence – Maryland or California – but that will be fixed.
The appointment doesn’t really make a difference in terms of Senate votes. No matter who Newsom had picked, that person would have voted with the Democrats on every single measure. Butler will do so, too.
Slightly OT, but has anyone calculated the bad effects of abortion on Democratic voter turnout?
Black babies are way over-represented in the aborted. These black babies would have grown up into black voters, who vote ~90% Democrat.
I don’t have time to run the numbers right now, but this is a self-own by the D’s.
Emily’s Lost is effectively pro-Republican. Democrats really like their abortions.
She’s 44 years old. She’s been employed as a professional agitator for her entire adult life. Her longest stint was on the staff of SEIU. She’s the exemplary Democratic pol, minus the law degree. She’s also a black lesbian, i.e. drawn from a demographic segment which accounts for all of 0.1% of the general population and (one suspects) a smaller share of the population of California (where the ratio of blacks to non-blacks is 65% below the national mean). I wouldn’t mention this last item except that ‘black lesbian’ is a selling point for partisan Democrats. Oh, and her parents were tasteless enough to name her “LaPhonza”.
Art Deco
“She’s been employed as a professional agitator for her entire adult life.”
Maybe she can help hide Rep. Bowman from the cameras next time they feel the need to interfere with congress in the execution of it duties.
(Paraphrasing Faye Dunaway in “Chinatown”):
She’s a carpetbagger AND a carpet-muncher!
Same might have been said for Hillary when she ran for Senate in NY.
So Newsom decided that a black Maryland lesbian was a fitting representative of the people of California? Maybe more left-coast Hispanics and Asians should take note.
AD: “the ratio of blacks to non-blacks is 65% below the national mean”
Yes. Blacks have been driven out of CA by the high cost of housing. The population is 6.5% while nationally it is 13.6%. Oakland has long been considered a center of black culture and used to be over half black. Now it is down to 22%.
Just another indication that Democrats are focused on race and sex. Newson had to do this if he, a white male, is to have any chance with the Democrat power structure for the presidency.
Just another indication that Democrats are focused on race and sex. Newson had to do this if he, a white male, is to have any chance with the Democrat power structure for the presidency.
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No, he elected to do this. Not one voter in 100 gives a rip who he appoints as a seat warmer, though some donors might.
Senator Carpetbagger owns a home in California, and IIRC presenting a utility bill with your mailing address is typically enough to qualify for residency. Thus, the question is how long it will take to process her paperwork. Still, the situation is absurd, and should be referenced at every occasion.
I’m also hoping that someone filed a nuisance lawsuit against her appointment, based on the residency issue.
Eric Swallwell hardest hit.
Art Deco (3:24 pm) points out that
“her parents were tasteless enough to name her ‘LaPhonza’.
Unusual, inventive names are a “thing” in the black community.
Plus, don’tcha know, “LaPhonza” is abbreviated from the original Italian: The Fonzarelli.
[ Henry Winkler, call your office. ]
Art Deco (4:26 pm) points out that
“Not one voter in 100 gives a rip who he appoints as a seat warmer, though some donors might.”
I know that “one in a hundred” is a figure of speech (and I know what you’re telling us), but given how deep blue California is, I reckon it’s substantially more than one in a hundred. And those Blue Meanies vote! — along with their relatives, dead and alive.
[ I’ve lived in (southern) California for over a decade now. ]
The donors and the party apparatchik are far more important that actual Democrat voters, who are treated, with some justification, as zombies who will vote for whomever the powers that be anoint.
But I thought Laphonza Butler gave her address as Silver Spring, Maryland.
Expand this by hundreds of appointments were Newsom to end up at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It would be the Star Wars bar scene, as Rush so often pointed out.
However, there was a little problem with the issue of residence – Maryland or California – but that will be fixed.
I am reminded about the introductory patter to Tom Lehrer’s 1965 song about another US Senator from California- George Murphy.
The third Senator was Robert Kennedy.
“Laphonza”
Rhymes with “Kwanzaa”
Both from the deep imaginary thoughts of those who are otherwise unproductive.
the name Laphonza indicates her mother named her. If it is a weird name, one can bet it was the product of a marginally literate black mama, in my Deep South experience. Bet also she does not know the identity of her sperm donor “father”.
Erasmus, but the music would be a lot worse.
Plus, don’tcha know, “LaPhonza” is abbreviated from the original Italian: The Fonzarelli.
M J R:
I wondered about that.
My sister is named “Chalee” after Pop Chalee. a Native American artist from Taos. She ended up in Boston. Until people met my sister in person, they assumed from her name she was black.
Leftist activist organizations are writing legislation & calling the shots anyway, so their leaders might as well be placed as the actual Dem. Senators & Representatives.
It was a selection pretty much destined to happen; and a very cunning move from Newsom, which was absolutely necessary to cement his upcoming Presidential run. She checks all the intersectional boxes; but also has more traditional Democrat credentials (union organizer, sat on the California Board of Regents). The EMILY’S List gig is a thick slab of icing on the cake. But she’s also an utter unknown, outside of leftist activist circles. Sure she could contest the election next year, but it’s highly unlikely she’d have any hope of success. It’d take a monumental amount of fundraising, very quickly. Race/gender card won’t work: Barbara Lee owns that. I think Lee is straight, so Butler could play up the LGBTQABC123$%/WTF thing, but that’s unlikely to be enough
Well played, Gavin. Well played. The Democrat power brokers (Soros included) are surely impressed. ‘He passed this crucial test with flying colors; he’s our man’.
Switcheroo in late November or early December.
This makes Newsome look like a fool, selecting a non resident of his state to be Senator. It also makes him look like someone who has a political owner, and does what he is told.
The 17th amendment is starting to make some sense.
one can bet it was the product of a marginally literate black mama, in my Deep South experience.
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Prior to about 1966, the marginally literate black mama would have given her child (1) a Biblical name, though perhaps misspelling it, (2) an off-beat but recognizably Indo-European name, (3) and ordinary Anglo-Celtic name, or (4) a familiar as a formal name. This last is not all that unusual among white Southerners, though the nicknames do differ. She’d have been named Esther or Regina or Valerie or Fannie Mae.
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Her father was named Delos Lamar Butler, Sr. He died at age 57, in 1996. He was married and he and his wife had nine children. She’s his youngest and the only one with an idiot name.
Evidently, the late Mr. Butler’s widow, Sarah, was not the mother of all of his children. Some or all of his children were the issue of his first wife, Lula Mae Butler. The 1st Mrs. Butler died in 1984 at the age of 43. Apparently, she had several children who were not his, so it appears they were divorced at that point.
One of her sisters was a spinster who died in 2021, at the age of 60. She was employed in the records department of a hospital in Baton Rouge.
It was a selection pretty much destined to happen
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No it wasn’t.
The third Senator was Robert Kennedy.
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Robert Kennedy’s estate was in Fairfax County, Va. and august enough to have a name (“Hickory Hill”), where he’d lived for about a dozen years. He’d previously attended law school at U.Va. in Charlottesville. He wasn’t salable as a Senate candidate in Virginia in 1964.
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RFK had in the course of his life lived all up and down the BosWash corridor (in addition to time in Britain when his father was the ambassador). There were a couple of family compounds for common use (one of which I believe he had been using as a notional residency). In 1927, his father had bought a home in Westchester County, NY and moved his wife and children there, making use of it as their primary residence. So, he wasn’t a stranger to New York the way Hellary was, but he hadn’t been a palpable resident for 13 years and his wife and children were down in NoVa. When I was active in local politics in New York, voter rolls were published at the end of March; these published rolls indicated who was eligible to sign a designating petition and who was eligible to vote in the upcoming primary. The petition period ran from the 3d week of June to the 3d week of July. I don’t believe Kennedy was a New York registrant in March of 1964. There’s the principal scandal right there.
On the residency issue, I looked at the Constitution. It says a Senator must be a resident of the state represented at the time of election. Butler isn’t elected, she’s appointed. She’s going to re-establish formal California residence for the optics, but she would be legally a senator even if she didn’t. She’d have to be a California resident if she decided to run for the office next year.
This is an indication that locality doesn’t matter as much in politics as it once did. Politics have become nationalized and politicians don’t represent a particular place and its interests, but rather ideological (and ethnic) groups. It would still be different if Butler were running for election — she’d clearly be labeled an outsider and rejected — but looking around Congress, the regional flavors aren’t there in the way they once were, especially in urban and suburban districts.
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Bet also she does not know the identity of her sperm donor “father”.
I have no “Deep South experience,” but that seems to me to me more what happens in urban areas, not in rural Mississippi.
There may be some issue still with the residency. Remember that originally (until ratification of the 17th ammendment) ALL Senators were appointed not elected. I think we may have a meaning shift in the word elected from late 18th century until now. The usage is probably closer to that of election meaning selection as used for religious purposes, That said I doubt the Democrats would pay any attention to it and constitutionally the Senate has final say on who may be a member of the Senate.
“On the residency issue, I looked at the Constitution. It says a Senator must be a resident of the state represented at the time of election. Butler isn’t elected, she’s appointed. She’s going to re-establish formal California residence for the optics, but she would be legally a senator even if she didn’t. She’d have to be a California resident if she decided to run for the office next year.”
I think that distinction is crucial here. The residency requirement appears to only apply when Senators are ELECTED, and not appointed.
One additional thought – if she doesn’t get CA residency, she wouldn’t be able to run next year for election. That maybe part of the plan. They needed someone of the right gender, race, and sexual orientation quickly. That’s what they got, a good leftist black female lesbian. But Newsom may have determined that putting someone in that seat semi-permanently, with such notables as Adam Schifty, etc, trying to grab the seat, that would have been politically perilous. We shall see.