Gov. Gavin Newsom’s appointee, EMILY’s List leader Laphonza Butler, mirrors his own values on labor and business issues, which tend to favor results over ideology.
Paul Morigi/Getty Images for Women’s March

Butler, who will be the first openly LGBTQ Black woman in the Senate, came up very differently than Newsom, a winery entrepreneur connected to the upper echelons of San Francisco society.

Born in Mississippi, Butler grew up in a working-class family, with her mother struggling to hold down multiple jobs while caring for Butler’s ailing father, who died when she was 16. Butler got her start in labor organizing nurses, janitors and hospital workers across the northeast. She spent a decade as the head of California’s largest union, SEIU Local 2015, which represents 400,000 long-term caregivers.

It was Butler’s time at SCRB Strategies, working alongside top Newsom advisers Sean Clegg and Ace Smith, that has served as fodder for critics on the left. In that role, she advised rideshare company Uber about how to work with unions as it negotiated Assembly Bill 5, a hotly contested law that sought to limit businesses’ ability to use contractors. She then went on to serve as director of public policy and campaigns in North America at Airbnb for a year before she took over as the head of EMILY’s List in 2021.

Despite some social media chatter questioning her progressive credentials, the state’s key labor actors aren’t criticizing Butler for her corporate ties in the same way they might attack the governor.

Shortly after congratulating Butler on Twitter, California Labor Federation head Lorena Gonzalez warned followers not to “get distracted,” reminding them that Newsom had rejected three high-profile labor bills.

Gonzalez later declined to answer questions about Butler’s relationship with labor.

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