Abortion activist becomes Interim Senator vice Feinstein

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) has exercised his option, under the laws of California, of appointing an interim Senator to finish out the unexpired term of the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.). As he had most recently said, he appointed someone unknown to California politics. But he shockingly appointed an abortion activist who doesn’t even live in California.

Where does this abortion activist come from?

Laphonza Butler, the new interim Senator-designate, is the president of EMILY’s List, notorious for advocating for abortion on demand. Politico.com reports that Newsom appointed Butler without regard to whether she would run for the Senate seat in 2024. In doing so, Newsom kept his word about not granting incumbency to any contender in the Democratic Senate primary. This, of course, bitterly disappoints Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), who very much wants to be California’s new junior Senator.

The Gateway Pundit reported last night that Butler checks off two key diversity boxes. She’s black – like Rep. Lee – and also prefers women in intimate contact, which makes her an Alphabet Soup “community” member. In fact, she and her intimate partner have a “daughter,” according to an earlier version of her EMILY’s List biography.

But already Newsom is coming under criticism for more than not crowning Barbara Lee with incumbency, as some were demanding. Butler doesn’t even live in California. She lives in Maryland, and registered to vote in that State only last year.

Tellingly, Butler has scrubbed her Maryland location information from her X profile and her EMILY’s List biography. Anthony Scott at The Gateway Pundit has the latest. (The EMILY’s List bio has changed in that way, as the Wayback Machine clearly shows.) However, Newsweek also lists her town of residence as Silver Springs, Maryland, where she has lived since 2021. The Associated Press says she will re-register to vote in California after presenting herself for swearing-in.

Who is Laphonza Buter and what else does she advocate?

EMILY’s List shows her as a member of the Board of Regents of the University of California. It also shows her as a director at the Children’s Defense Fund. CDF, which Marian Wright Edelman founded in 1973, is most famous today for “Freedom Schools” for Black pupils, mainly in the South. They have also called for gun control, on the theory that one can disarm the public, and such disarmament would protect children.

The Constitution says that a Senator, “when elected,” must “reside in the States from which (s)he shall be chosen.” The AP says she owns a home in California, so that would satisfy the residency requirement. Besides, this is an interim designation, not an election. Even the 17^th Amendment says nothing to forbid a State governor to appoint an out-of-State interim Senator. If a State legislature sees fit to so empower its Governor, nothing in the U.S. Constitution forbids it.