THE BUZZ: LAPHONZA LOOKS BACK — Today marks the start of the Sen. Adam Schiff era, as the newly-elected junior senator takes the oath of office to finish the final weeks of the late Sen. Dianne Feinsein’s term And that means Sen. Laphonza Butler’s year-and-change tenure in the Senate is coming to an end — an improbable chapter for the California political veteran who went from behind-the-scenes power broker to public figure, after Gov. Gavin Newsom appointed her to the Senate days after Feinsten’s death. It was a short stint, but certainly not boring. From the whirlwind appointment to watching her longtime political ally Kamala Harris suddenly become the Democratic presidential nominee (and serving as co-chair to that unsuccessful campaign), Butler’s brief tenure was an unusually newsy one. Butler held her final Los Angeles open house last month, regaling the friendly crowd with anecdotes of being the only Black woman in the Senate (and the third in its history) and how the calcified institution can seem like, in her words, “a foreign land.” Afterward, she chatted with Playbook about lessons learned from her tenure and the election, and why she won’t be coming back to California in the immediate future. This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity. PLAYBOOK: This was the first time you were put front and center in the role of elected official. You had told me once that was never something that had spoken to you. Did you like it more than you anticipated? BUTLER: No. Look, the thing that has given me the most energy in whatever role that I did was the people that I got to do it with and for. And so it doesn't matter to me what the position is or what the role is, as long as I'm clear about who I get to do it with and I know for whom I am doing it. I didn't fall in love with the process of being a legislator. I didn't fall in love with the trappings of thinking that I'm a celebrity of some sort. What I love are the people of California, what I love are the people of this country. PLAYBOOK: What would your advice be to Sen-elect Schiff, to Governor Newsom – to anybody who has a stake in this – of how they should be thinking about these next four years as leaders of the resistance, leaders of California and what's the balance? BUTLER: Look, both of those guys, and probably any elected official, save those who just got elected for the first time two weeks ago, have way more experience at this than I do. So I recognize and appreciate that they don't necessarily need the advice of a 13-month tenured senator. I don't believe Gov. Newsom was elected to be the governor of the resistance. I don't believe Sen.-elect Schiff was elected to be the senator-elect of of the resistance. I hope that the lesson from any of this is a reminder for all of us that we are public servants, that we are here to serve the people who send us. And the governor of California has to be the governor of all of California. I went to the United States Senate overnight, and one of the first pieces of work that I did was with Chuck Grassley. One of the biggest pieces of legislation that I hope to be able to bring to a close is with Senator Katie Britt, introducing mental health legislation with Lisa Murkowski, getting Susan Collins to vote for one of my judges when Joe Manchin didn't… PLAYBOOK: Sure, but you were just a co-chair of a campaign that was saying Trump is a fascist, he is a threat to democracy. So that seems to be this inherent tension or contradiction now where you're saying, look for opportunities of cooperation with his party. But can you cooperate with a fascist? BUTLER: One, being a co-chair of the campaign is not telling the candidate how to answer a question. Two, I am acknowledging that there is an inherent tension and that as elected officials, as public servants, we don't get to choose either/or. That what we must choose is both/and. There are values that are essential to the function of our democracy. And there are challenges that California farmers and Iowa farmers and Kansas and Oklahoma farmers face too. So let's figure out a way how to address those things without compromising the values that we have. To offer that there is that we must choose one or the other, I just think it's a false choice PLAYBOOK: Are you staying in DC for the foreseeable future? BUTLER: [My daughter] just started fourth grade. I'm not gonna snatch her out of fourth grade, that's for sure. I definitely am gonna be there until she's done with this school year, and we'll figure it out after that. But you know, the whims of my life shouldn't interrupt hers. GOOD MORNING. Happy Monday. Thanks for waking up with Playbook. You can text us at 916-562-0685 — save it as “CA Playbook” in your contacts. Or drop us a line at dgardiner@politico.com and tkatzenberger@politico.com, or on X — @DustinGardiner and @TylerKatzen. WHERE’S GAVIN? Nothing official announced.
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