Laphonza Butler, California’s new US senator, has strong Maryland ties

U.S. Sen. Laphonza Butler, a recent Maryland resident who met her wife while living in Baltimore and went on to lead a powerful national political fundraising organization, was sworn in Tuesday to serve out the remaining term of U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who died Friday at age 90.

With Democrats holding a slim majority in the Senate, California Gov. Gavin Newsom moved quickly to fill the seat Feinstein held since 1992.

Butler had been serving as the president of EMILYs List, a Washington, D.C.-based political action committee that supports female Democratic candidates who advocate for abortion access.

In a news release announcing her appointment, Newsom called Butler an “advocate for women and girls” who would be the first openly LGBTQ person to represent California in the U.S. Senate, and the second Black woman after Vice President Kamala Harris, who served as the junior senator from California from 2017 to 2021.

“Laphonza Butler represents the best of California, and she’ll represent us proudly in the United States Senate,” Newsom said. “Laphonza will carry the baton left by Senator Feinstein, continue to break glass ceilings, and fight for all Californians in Washington D.C.”

Butler, 44, has been a homeowner in California since 2011 and is registered to vote there, Butler’s spokesperson Matthew Wing told The Baltimore Sun.

But she’s also lived recently in Maryland, and a spokesperson for Newsom, Izzy Gardon, said though Butler was a “longtime California voter,” she re-registered to vote in that state only on Sunday.

A Mississippi native, Butler spent most of her career in California before moving to Silver Spring, where she was a resident as recently as June 4, according to a record of a donation she made at the time to Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks’ campaign to represent Maryland in the U.S. Senate.

EMILYs List endorsed Alsobrooks — who, like Butler, would be one of the only Black women in the Senate; there were none serving in the chamber before Tuesday — quickly after she entered the race earlier this year to replace the retiring U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin.

Butler’s $1,000 donation to Alsobrooks was one of two federal campaign contributions she made this year. The other, a $1,000 donation to California congressional hopeful Lateefah Simon in March, also listed the Silver Spring address.

Public records show Butler and her wife, Neneki Lee, previously resided in Baltimore. In 2006, they purchased a home in Hunting Ridge, in West Baltimore, for $339,000, according to property records. The deed was transferred solely to Lee in 2008, and the property went through a foreclosure shortly after that, records show.

“When Laphonza first met and fell in love with her wife Neneki they were both working at SEIU in D.C .and living in Baltimore,” Wing, Butler’s spokesperson, said, though he did not answer a question about when Butler initially moved to Baltimore.

“In 2009, they moved to California and built a life there,” he said. “They adopted their daughter Nylah, bought [and sold] property and spent over a decade working to organize and fighting for workers.”

Property records do not show Butler or Lee currently owning any property in Baltimore or Montgomery County. A house listed as their address in Silver Spring is owned by a limited liability corporation registered in Maryland called Pack LLC, according to property records. It was purchased by its current owner for $575,000 in 2020, records show.

Butler previously worked as director of public policy at Airbnb between 2020 and 2021, according to her LinkedIn profile, after working at SCRB Strategies, a consulting firm now known as Bearstar Strategies. The firm has advised politicians such as Harris, Newsom and former San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, and unsuccessfully lobbied on behalf of Uber against efforts to limit businesses’ use of independent contractors, according to lobbying records filed with the California Secretary of State’s office.

Before that, Butler was a member of the Board of Regents for the University of California from August 2018 to September 2021. She also served as the president of labor union SEIU Local 2015, which represents California nursing home and home-care workers, from 2010 to 2019.

Newsom, a Democrat, was first elected governor in 2019 after serving as the lieutenant governor in Jerry Brown’s administration and as mayor of San Francisco from 2004 to 2011. He previously pledged to nominate a Black woman to succeed Feinstein, but ducked calls to appoint U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee of Oakland, who is running for that seat.

“[I] look forward to working closely with [Butler] to deliver for the Golden State,” Lee wrote in a Sunday post on X, formerly known as Twitter. “I am singularly focused on winning my campaign for Senate. [California] deserves an experienced Senator who will deliver on progressive priorities. That’s exactly what I’m running to do.”

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