Elected leaders from Los Angeles to the Inland Empire this week are ramping up their lobbying efforts on Gov. Gavin Newsom, urging him to pick a Latino or an African American person to replace U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris as she ascends to the role of vice president.
Two weeks after the Nov. 3 election, dueling news conferences among advocates are planned this week, with the prospect of highlighting an intra-party lobbying effort that up until now has been remained behind the scenes.
While President Donald Trump has yet to concede his projected defeat during the election certification process amid a series of legal challenges, President-elect Joe Biden and Harris are set to take office on Jan. 20, as the Constitution mandates.
In the meantime, Newsom must pick someone to replace her to fill the final two years of the six-year term. While it’s not yet clear how soon before the inauguration Harris will give up her seat, Newsom has said he has no timeline to make an announcement.
That did not stop Latino advocacy groups and leaders on Monday, who began a weeklong campaign or urging the governor to make a choice that reflects California’s population, where Latinos outnumber Whites, Asians and Blacks.
Later this week, a high-profile group of Latinx leaders are all set to take to the steps of L.A. City Hall to get the word out. Among them: State Sen. Maria Elena Durazo, D-Los Angeles; Assemblyman Miguel Santiago, D-Los Angeles; Riverside County Supervisor Manuel Perez, vice president of the Latino Caucus of California Counties; Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights; and NALEO Executive Director Arturo Vargas.
That will follow similar events all week throughout the state.
“For us, this is a very important time, because we’re seeing the demographics in the state population, where Latinos represent 40% of Californians… We need to have leadership that is really reflective of the state, and who also understand the kind of solutions that are going to move us forward,” said Rosie Arroyo, board chair of Hispanas Organized for Political Equality (HOPE), part of the coalition of interests lobbying for a Hispanic appointment.
The goal is to have someone who can view policy issues such as immigration and education, Arroyo said, through the lens of immigrants.
So far, names including Secretary of State Alex Padilla, Attorney General Xavier Becerra and Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia have been circulating.
Garcia is a popular leader in his adopted hometown and would be a breakthrough pick — he’s young, a Latinx immigrant and openly gay.
Padilla and Becerra are regarded as thoughtful and focused, coming into public from different disciplines — Padilla’s an engineer, Becerra an attorney.
The open Senate seat, however, has not only energized the Latinx community.
Another contingent of politicians are pushing Newsom to replace Harris with another Black woman.
Harris, the daughter of immigrants from Jamaica and India, is one of just two Black women to ever serve in the Senate. Carol Moseley Braun, who represented Illinois from 1993-1999, is the other.
A coalition of Black California lawmakers and organizations have organized behind a drive to support U.S. Rep. Karen Bass, who represents L.A.’s 37th District, an area that includes West Los Angeles, Mid-City, West Adams and Crenshaw.
Bass, a former speaker of the California Assembly, heads the Congressional Black Caucus and was on Biden’s vice presidential short list.
She has also been mentioned as a possible pick for Biden’s Cabinet — possibly as a potential Housing and Urban Development secretary.
Advocates of the “Keep the Seat” movement see Barbara Lee — the Oakland-area congresswoman — as a another contender.
“There is no rest for the weary… our job from now until January is to mount a loud state and national campaign to ensure that a Black woman, Karen Bass or Barbara Lee, gets appointed to the CA Senate seat in the US Congress,” advocates touted in a flier promoting an upcoming press conference at the State Capitol.
Advocates for Bass and Lee are looking at the prospects of a U.S. Senate with only one Black Democratic senator, Corey Booker, of New Jersey. Supporters contend Harris was elected to the Senate in 2017 by an electorate that wanted a Black woman in the position. Any other pick other than a black woman would be subverting that will, they say.
“My bottom line thing is the governor needs to remember that when the people voted, they voted for an African American woman to fill that space. They knew that. It wasn’t a secret,” said Jimmie Woods-Gray, a Los Angeles County Democratic activist. “In keeping to the will of the people, he should appoint an African American woman to fill those two years.”
Woods-Gray said the results of the recent presidential election — where Joe Biden/Harris ticket was put over the top by Black voters, some electoral experts said — should be enough for Newsom to see her logic.
“The reason Kamala Harris is going to be the vice president is because African Americans voted in large numbers,” she said.
“We just want the governor to acknowledge that he does see us and he understands the issues as they are,” Woods-Gray added. “It’s not a friendship thing. It’s the reality of the political situation at this time.”
Of course, the issue of who Newsom picks goes beyond those perhaps at the top of the short list. There are others, with ethnic roots and experience, also seemingly poised for higher office.
L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti — with Mexican-Jewish-Italian roots — and London Breed, San Francisco’s Black mayor, both remain on Newsom’s radar.
Expanding that list, there’s U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Burbank, a hero to many Democrats for his leading role in efforts to impeach Trump; and U.S. Rep. Katie Porter of Orange County, a Democratic freshman rising star, who has clicked off a series of legislative successes. Both are prolific fundraisers in Congress.
Both may also be in position to wait for when California’s other Senate seat comes open, held by 87-year-old Dianne Feinstein, the chamber’s oldest member. Her term runs through January 2025, but there is speculation she could step down early, given her age.
Political science experts also wonder if the party would want Porter, a rising star, to leave a seat that could prove vulnerable to Republican hands down the road in future elections — especially with Orange County flipping two seats red in results just finaluized from the Nov. 3 vote.
It’s unclear if there’s a frontrunner among Padilla, Becerra, Bass, Garcia, or Lee. With so much going on — COVID-19, election, wildfires — it’s not exactly Newsom’s top talking point these days. On Monday, the governor Newsom hit the “emergency brake” on economic activity, moving 28 counties — including Orange — back to the most restrictive tier of California’s matrix governing business operations during the coronavirus outbreak.
It’s also possible Newsom would install a caretaker in the Senate from among party elders to hold the seat until after the 2022 election. That person would step aside after a new senator is elected.
But what is clear to many experts is that he may be looking to fuse a bold statement with an appointee with whom he strongly connects.
“You look at who checks all those boxes and look at how much he might weigh that with political experience and D.C. connections,” said Marcia Godwin, professor of public administration at the University of La Verne.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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