What if Laphonza Butler decides to run for the Senate seat?

The pipe dream of some Black women in California for the last three years has been getting one of their number into the United States Senate.

Black women have been there before, in the persons of Carole Moseley Braun of Illinois, who served from 1993 to 1999, and California’s own Kamala Harris from 2016 until elected vice president in 2020. But for almost four years after Harris’ accession to the nation’s nominal No. 2 political job, there were none.

That left a void Gov. Gavin Newsom three years ago vowed to fill if another vacancy arose in a California Senate seat — and he named Laphonza Butler quickly after the pioneering Dianne Feinstein’s death in late September.

Butler was sworn in less than five days after Feinstein’s demise.

Newsom thus kept one promise. But by not requiring that Butler commit to being a mere caretaker, a seat filler, he broke another prior commitment.

Newsom left it to Butler to decide whether or not to seek a full term next year, breaking his commitment to name a mere interim senator.

As of this writing, Butler had not decided what she'll do.

If she entered the race, the former head of the EMILY’s List women’s political funding committee knew, she would be the fourth major Democrat in the race, which was also reported about to be joined by Steve Garvey, political neophyte and former all-star first baseman who won pennants with both the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres.

Newsom’s stated reason for promising to name a caretaker was to avoid interfering in the ongoing campaign. But a Butler entry into the race held the potential for changing things radically.

Every recent poll on that race showed all three Democratic Congress members running with substantial leads over all Republicans in the field. Those surveys had Burbank’s Adam Schiff, a longtime nemesis of ex-President Donald Trump, leading fellow Democrat Katie Porter of Irvine and Oakland’s Barbara Lee, the only Black person running before the Butler’s appointment.

This appeared to ensure a Democrat-on-Democrat general election race next fall. But if Butler were to get in, Democratic votes, especially those going to Lee, could be further split, potentially opening a path to the runoff for Garvey, who has more name recognition than anyone in the race not named Schiff.

It may be no accident that Garvey, who has “explored” a run since last spring, appeared ready to get in only after the Butler possibility arose.

No statewide primary race with more than three Democratic contenders has produced an all-Democrat runoff election since California adopted its Top Two, “jungle primary” system via the 2010 Proposition 14. The party's voters have been too splintered for that. There appeared a good chance the pattern would continue if Butler opted to enter the race.

As the former head of the nation’s leading women’s political funding group, Butler knows all this, but still was pondering the race. She also had to know that her fairly recent move to Maryland — one she reversed immediately upon getting Newsom’s nod — would harm her in a California Senate race.

So a Butler entry into this contest was far from assured.

But there was one other possibility, however slim it appeared: Lee could drop out and urge supporters to vote for Butler.

This appeared very unlikely even though Lee has run a distant third in every major poll taken so far, her 7% share topping all Republicans, but trailing far behind Schiff’s 20% and Porter’s 17%.

Lee, 77, adopted a beaming, almost celebratory look when Butler was sworn in as a senator by Harris. Her stated goal in running was to give black women representation in the Senate, and Butler was now there even if Lee was not.

Political and mathematical reality is that if Lee (or Butler) wants to avoid diluting Democratic votes to the point where a Republican like Garvey could make next November’s runoff, this might be about the only open path. But it would require self-sacrifice from either Lee or Butler and no one yet knows whether either is capable of that.

Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com.

This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: What if Laphonza Butler decides to run for the Senate seat?