(Reuters) – California Governor Gavin Newsom said on Sunday he had picked Laphonza Butler to fill the Senate vacancy left by Dianne Feinstein, who died on Thursday aged 90.
Butler is a former president of EMILY’s List, an organization that works to elect to office Democratic female candidates who are in favor of abortion rights.
The appointment would make her the first Black lesbian to openly serve in the U.S. Senate, according to Newsom.
Butler has also worked as a senior adviser to Vice President Kamala Harris and was the president of the largest labor union in California representing more than 325,000 nursing home and home-care workers throughout the state.
“Laphonza has spent her entire career fighting for women and girls and has been a fierce advocate for working people,” Newsom said in a social media post.
Butler’s predecessor Feinstein, who became the longest-serving woman senator ever, advocated gun control and spearheaded the first federal assault weapons ban. She also documented the CIA’s torture of foreign terrorism suspects.
(Reporting by Urvi Dugar in Bengaluru; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)
