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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   29842 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 2, 2023

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California has a likely new Senator, and her background is a doozy if you're someone as cynical as I am about political figures. With Diane Feinstein having died, Gavin Newsome can now select anyone he'd like, and had promised that the position would be selected from a strict affirmative action pool of black women. He apparently failed to find anyone that actually lives in California that fits the bill, so he has instead selected Maryland resident Laphonza Butler for the position. What, you might ask, are her exquisite qualifications that would make her the top candidate for such an important position? Wiki's summary suffices:

Butler began her career as a union organizer for nurses in Baltimore and Milwaukee, janitors in Philadelphia, and hospital workers in New Haven, Connecticut. In 2009, she moved to California, organizing in-home caregivers and nurses, and served as president of SEIU United Long Term Care Workers, SEIU Local 2015.[4][5][6]

Butler was elected president of the California SEIU State Council in 2013. She undertook efforts to boost California's minimum wage and raise income taxes on the wealthiest Californians.[4] As president of SEIU Local 2015, Butler endorsed Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Democratic presidential primary.[7]

In 2018, California Governor Jerry Brown appointed Butler to a 12-year term as a regent of the University of California.[6] She resigned from her role as regent in 2021.[8]

Butler joined SCRB Strategies as a partner in 2018. At SCRB, she played a central role in Kamala Harris's 2020 presidential campaign. Butler also advised Uber in its dealings with organized labor while at SCRB.[9] She was known as a political ally of Harris since her first run for California Attorney General in 2010, when she helped Harris negotiate a shared SEIU endorsement in the race.[4][10]

Butler left SCRB in 2020 to join Airbnb as director of public policy and campaigns in North America.[11][5]

Butler was named the third president of EMILY's List in 2021. She was the first Black woman and mother to lead the organization.[12][4]

What exactly is EMILY's List?

EMILY's List is an American political action committee (PAC) that aims to help elect Democratic female candidates in favor of abortion rights to office. It was founded by Ellen Malcolm in 1985.[4] The group's name is an acronym for "Early Money Is Like Yeast". Malcolm commented that "it makes the dough rise".[4] The saying refers to a convention of political fundraising: receiving many donations early in a race helps attract subsequent donors. EMILY's List bundles contributions to the campaigns of Democratic women in favor of abortion rights running in targeted races.[5][6]

From 1985 through 2008, EMILY's List raised $240 million for political candidates.[1] EMILY's List spent $27.4 million in 2010, $34 million in 2012, and $44.9 million in 2014.[3] The organization was on track to raise $60 million for the 2016 election cycle, much of it earmarked for Hillary Clinton, whose presidential bid EMILY's List had endorsed.[7]

Chalk up a win for patronage models of politics! This is someone whose entire career is built on raising money for politicians, culminating in heading a powerful PAC that is more explicitly built around money, money, money even in their very naming than any other PAC I've seen. Obviously, anyone paying attention knows that PACs are always about raising money and that's their express purpose, but I don't think I've seen one literally just make their name an acronym for the patronage enthusiasm. Big donors give money to politicians and get what they want and the organizer for acquiring that wealth is awarded with a seat in the Senate. In all, I see three things of note that are often the subtext of various choices and decisions, but I rarely see so blatantly:

  • The appointment will be explicitly about race and gender. If you're anything other than a Black Woman, you need not apply.

  • The Democrat party apparatus does not care in the slightest whether this person represents California, states are a stupid anachronism anyway.

  • The appointment will go to someone that has demonstrated loyalty and usefulness in assisting with the funneling of hundreds of millions of dollars to preferred sources.

On the one hand, it's all rather offensive, but on the other hand, I can think of no better Senator from California than a transient grifter that makes her living off of identity politics.

I think it's more productive to imagine who Gavin Newsom might have appointed, given political constraints and his national ambitions.

  1. They have to be a solid Democrat. This is uninteresting and would apply just as much to a Republican appointing a replacement for a Republican Senator.

  2. They can't be someone with ambitions for the seat. This is a bit less obvious, but choosing a particular candidate for the seat gives them a substantial advantage against rivals for the seat and generates bad blood.

2a) They can't be someone who plausibly would have ambitions for the seat. Once appointed, the Senator can very well say "actually I am going to run," which they will if it's best for their political ambitions. There'd be a bloody primary, but the appointee would know that should they win, everyone will rally around them (exact calculations complicated by California's jungle primary system). Newsom, on the other hand, has to deal with the fallout of causing a nasty, bloody primary.

So Newsom has to choose someone who 1) is a solid Democrat and 2) has absolutely no political base within California for any ambitions. Within those constraints, why not choose the person who earns you the most diversity points? And that's how you land on Butler. The fact that she's an out-of-state apparatchik is a plus in that constraint context, if anything.

My personal preference, for what it's worth, would have been James Sauls, Feinstein's Chief of Staff. Satisfies all the constraints and provides continuity of service in the meantime.

I read some articles over the weekend that Newsom was under pressure to appoint Barbara Lee. Supposedly she's angry that he didn't give her the seat (with all the electoral advantages of the incumbent.)

She's qualified in many ways. She is also 77 though, it would be nice not to keep going down the path of ancient politicians, especially in a seat that was so recently a laughing stock over its holder's clear dementia. Newsom had also said several weeks ago it wouldn't be Lee because she's already running in the race. Most likely he doesn't want to pick one of the actual viable candidates like her, Porter, or Schiff, because he auomatically risks making an enemy out of the other two

Newsom is aware of the chance that Biden has a senior moment that creates an opening in the primary. If he does end up running for President on a message of "the incumbent is too old", then he won't want to have appointed a 77-year old to the Senate, and particularly not one who is planning to run for a full term that would take her through to 84.

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