With Black LGBTQ+ senator’s exit, 2 men will represent state for first time in decades.
WASHINGTON — Earlier this year, as Republicans sought to ban books with Black history and LGBTQ+ themes from schools across the country, the nation’s first openly gay Black senator stepped onto the Senate floor and read aloud from some of them.
“Perhaps for some of you here today, I am the face of one of your fears,” Democratic Sen. Laphonza Butler said in February, quoting 20th century poet Audre Lorde. “Because I am a Black woman, because I am a lesbian, because I am myself — a Black woman warrior poet doing work — who has come to ask you, are you doing yours?”
At the time, Butler was just a few months into her tenure as California’s junior senator, a 14-month stretch that began when she was appointed shortly after Sen. Dianne Feinstein died in 2023, and that ends Monday when Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank) is sworn in to take her place.
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