Marisa Lagos: And we’ll talk about the woman appointed to succeed Feinstein, Laphonza Butler, and the biggest question in California politics, will Butler run for a full term in the Senate? Joining us to talk all about this is the indispensable third member of our Political Breakdown team, Guy Marzorati. Hey Guy.
Guy Marzorati: What a week.
Marisa Lagos: What a week, I’m done, can we call mercy now on the political news? Well, today we all just got back. Scott and I were there at the public memorial service for Senator Feinstein, where Vice President Kamala Harris, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Mayor London Breed and Feinstein’s granddaughter all spoke along with Chuck Schumer, leader of the Senate. But I mean, that’s one of the things that struck me was like looking at that stage full of women, right. Who all are incredibly powerful and thinking back on Feinstein. And Scott, on Wednesday, you were there as her body lay in state at city hall. I know there was a lot of just normal members of the public there and some dignitaries.
Scott Shafer: Yeah, it was. The city hall opened at around nine and I was over there bright and early. And Speaker Pelosi, Speaker Emerita Pelosi got there about one word about 9:00. And she came and met with Catherine Feinstein, the late senator’s daughter, and she was very choked up. I have to say, I went to talk to her before she goes, let’s wait until I sign the condolence book and go in and see the coffin and pay my respects, say a prayer. She was very, you know, close to Dianne Feinstein. It was very emotional for her. She had flown on the president’s plane, Air Force One, with the senator’s body and Catherine Feinstein. So it was all very, very emotional. Afterwards, we did get a chance to talk about what the senator meant to her and to the city.
Nancy Pelosi: I was thinking of the words during the night about how gentle she was, but how strategic she was. And so, she knew her purpose and she would not be, she did things on her own terms, but she always did them with gentleness. She loved flowers. She loved to grow them. She loved to paint them. She loved to show them off. And so she had she was very, very special person.
Scott Shafer: There are people who don’t remember her as mayor because they’re too young or they just moved here.
Nancy Pelosi: They weren’t even born.
Scott Shafer: What are your thoughts? Like what should what should people know about her tenure as mayor and what she left behind?
Nancy Pelosi: What they should know about her is that as mayor of the city, she came in under the most gruesome circumstances, and yet she gave comfort and strength to the city at that difficult time. But the story I love to tell is that when we wanted to, I was chair of the California party, we wanted to have the Democratic convention come to San Francisco. So we went to see her and she said, ‘Well, I can’t do that if it takes any resources away from Laguna Honda.’ She was always thinking about those in most need, and we said, no, that it wouldn’t do that. But let us prove that to you. As you know, the stories of her just giving mouth to mouth resuscitation to somebody on the street that she didn’t even know. But that’s what she was. She was generous, generous, completely generous. So, again, she and I were not on the same place on the political spectrum. So we had our fun with it all. But from a personal standpoint, my family loved her. We were neighbors, we were friends and my daughter, Nancy. We always tease and said, if Diane and I were running against each other, we were sure Nancy Carinne would vote for Dianne Feinstein.
Marisa Lagos: What great tape, Scott. You know, I think the former speaker talked there about her living on her own terms, dying on her own terms. She voted the day that she passed away.
Guy Marzorati: To keep the government running.
Marisa Lagos: To keep the government open.
Scott Shafer: Walked onto the Senate floor.
Marisa Lagos: Walked on and we were talking to one of her staff members today who said, you know, she was frail and she did need a wheelchair to get around. But she insisted that we would wheel her up to the door and she would walk into that chamber by herself.
Guy Marzorati: And I thought Pelosi, out of the speakers today at the memorial, was the most personal of all the elected officials. I mean, she even mentioned to you, Scott, they they had their political differences. They weren’t the same kind of Democrats, something like the Iraq war. You look at different votes that they had. But she had a personal connection to Feinstein that I don’t think maybe many of the others on stage did. She talked about her own, you know, daughter in that tape with you. Her daughter Nancy, took care of Feinstein kind of towards the very end of her life in Washington.
Scott Shafer: Yeah. And I think, you know, the just the fact that she could look out the window of her house and see the hydrangeas in Senator Feinstein’s garden, you know, they obviously were you know, they were neighbors. They were friends. They were, you know, kind of quasi-family. They were political family at the very least. And, you know, one of the other things I liked about the speeches today was her granddaughter, the late senator’s granddaughter, who really spoke about a softer, gentler side of her grandmother, you know, playing.
Marisa Lagos: Playing hide and seek, which I’m trying to imagine—
Guy Marzorati: Oh yeah, it was the stories that I think a politician running nowadays would want to lean into in their public persona. But the very kind of thing Feinstein was always reluctant to reveal about herself.
Scott Shafer: Right, and you know, the book that Jerry Roberts, former Chronicle reporter, the bio of her, was called Never Let Them See You Cry, because she was always strong on the outside. And yeah, to hear the stories about picking flowers in the garden and then painting them and, you know, learning how to play chess from her grandmother and all that stuff. It was really I thought it really rounded out the view we have of Dianne Feinstein.
Marisa Lagos: I mean, but there’s a reason she didn’t want people to see her cry. And it’s because that she came up in a time where that was not I mean, she was sitting in seats that women weren’t supposed to be in to begin with, Right. Starting from going to Stanford in the 50s up through even being elected on the school board. I mean, you know, we’ve heard the story of her meeting Willie Brown because she was out there with, you know, Catherine Feinstein, her daughter, in a stroller, helping protest against racist housing policies that were keeping black families like Willie Brown’s out of certain San Francisco neighborhoods. At the same time, she was a single mom at that point. Right. And, you know, the other thing that I felt was very personal was Mayor London Breed talking about her today. Breed mentioned that she was born in the 1970s and you know, really came up not knowing a world without Dianne Feinstein as the mayor.
London Breed: None of the things that she told me as an adult were ever as important. As what she showed us as children. Through times of tragedy and triumph, Dianne Feinstein showed us the meaning of San Francisco’s motto Gold in Peace, Iron in War. She showed us a world where women lead, where we lift each other up so that girls like me could follow in her footsteps.
Scott Shafer: Yeah, that was such a powerful statement. And I think, you know, that also goes to who London Breed is, you know, the strength and the power of her own biography and growing up in San Francisco when she did and how she did. But, you know, it occurs to me, listening to that, that all you know, we talked about the political differences that Feinstein had with Pelosi. She certainly had them with Breed and with Kamala Harris too, the vice president. I mean, Well, you know, obviously, she spoke today as well. And I think we all remember that time when right after Kamala became D.A. and there was a police officer shot and killed. And she immediately said, you know, we’re not going to seek the death penalty. And Feinstein called her out at the funeral.
Guy Marzorati: In a room full of police officers.
Scott Shafer: Roomful of police officers, they cheered. And, you know, that was and that was we’ve talked about it, you know, a pivotal moment for Kamala. So, yeah, Dianne was you know, she was, Dianne Feinstein had a particular lane in politics and it was a little bit to the right of San Francisco.
Marisa Lagos: But you did hear today that she didn’t make it personal.
Guy Marzorati: Yeah, yeah. No, I think that’s true. And I think even, you know, Chuck Schumer talked about her ability to reach across the aisle on something like the assault weapons ban, but that carried forward in a lot of different policy areas. I mean, we talked about water. She was just as likely to work with Republicans in the Central Valley. In fact, Kevin McCarthy was someone that she worked with on water bills in the past. So I think that was certainly her kind of political style. I remember when you both sat down with her in 2018, the last time that she was running for reelection, she was really resistant to this idea of political styles. She didn’t want to be talked about as, Oh, I have a different style as Kamala —
Marisa Lagos: She didn’t want to be compared. I think she felt like the media was trying to pit two women against each other.
Guy Marzorati: And I think to her there wasn’t another style. This was the way in which you were supposed to act in the U.S. Senate. And this is, you know, the way that she viewed things had to be done.
Scott Shafer: Yeah, I think generationally she was just not of the digital generation. You know, she wasn’t you know, she didn’t have any … Facebooking and Tweeting, her staff did that for her. And I think she she didn’t appreciate the really the quick, she was a workhorse, you know, And I think she you know, Kamala Harris told the story today when she became sent to the you know, elected to the Senate, Feinstein handed her a glass of chardonnay wine and a binder full of her bills.
Marisa Lagos: California chardonnay.
Scott Shafer: California chardonnay, yeah she was just really, her nose to the grindstone.
Guy Marzorati: Well, Harris used a quote today, she said she was about results, not rhetoric. And I think in large part that’s why Feinstein, in her later years, was really drifting away from where not only the Democratic Party was, but just where politics are today. I think, you know, we talk about this moment where the school kids came into her office and asked her to please support the Green New Deal. And, you know, she just it was like she couldn’t believe that they had the temerity to walk into a sitting senator’s office. And I think and the you know, as you said, the digital age of politics was kind of lost on her. But kind of the pugilistic age that we’re in right now was lost on her as well.
Scott Shafer: She was always trying to find common ground.
Marisa Lagos: Well and Chuck Schumer talked about this and I think other speakers, too, which is like she did her homework. She was a workhorse in the best sense of the word, that she wouldn’t just sort of speak out of turn. She would say, let me go read on that. And she actually would, which I don’t know, I don’t want to throw cast any aspersions here, but looking at what’s happened in the House of Representatives this week, I don’t know that all those people are like reading the the bill before they vote on it.
I do want to say, though, you know, I mentioned at the top that it was and I think you heard this in the mayor’s comments about what it felt like to grow up then. I mean, Nancy Pelosi, I think, made a joke about, you know, the fact that there’s little girls who said, oh, men can be a mayor, too? Right. But it was also very fitting to have this ceremony on the steps of city hall at the building where really her fate was sort of written in 1978 after the horrific murders of Mayor George Moscone and Harvey Milk. And, you know, looking back at everything this week as somebody who wasn’t here at the time, it’s just wild to think. I mean, just two weeks before that, over 900 people had died at the Jonestown massacre, including Congressman Leo Ryan, who was murdered basically a, you know, hit job by the leader of that cult. Her for her second husband, Bert Feinstein, had passed away earlier that year. And when we talked to her a few years ago, she said, you know, she had planned on stepping down from politics. And we asked her about that moment coming out and announcing to the world that another supervisor had murdered them. And this is what she talked about.
Dianne Feinstein: What happens to me is everything else blocks out except what I am doing and what I need to do. So it’s a phenomenon. I can’t explain what happens, but I can just perform. I can just keep going. And it’s not by will. I know that. But it happens that way.
Marisa Lagos: So powerful to hear her talk about, you know, something that you can tell decades later still felt traumatic.
Scott Shafer: And Chuck Schumer today made a similar allusion to her when she was up in Lake Tahoe for one of her Tahoe summits and fractured her ankle and yet refused to seek medical help.
Marisa Lagos: She had a job to do.
Scott Shafer: She had a job to do. You know, she went through with the summit and, you know, later on got the attention that she needed. But she was tough, you know, And, you know, being like, as you said today, Guy earlier, forged in tragedy. That was actually the phrase in the TV commercial that they used when she was running for governor in 1990. And I think that I think that is part of what, how this outpouring of affection and appreciation for her that we’ve seen this week is that moment, you know, when she stood up and brought the city together, it was coming apart at the seams. And I think no one really knew what was next. You know, this is also an assassination by a former member of the board of supervisors.
Guy Marzorati: Who she had been mentoring.
Scott Shafer: Yes, friends with.
Guy Marzorati: Yeah and I think you hear that steadfastness in a quote like that from Feinstein and you realize, like why it ended like it did for her in the Senate. Like she was not someone who was going to have a life after public service or a life after politics. And I think she didn’t. It was kind of those blinders that she’s almost describing that I think ended up in a situation where the last few years of her life in the Senate were, you know, full of questions about her service and whether she’s hanging on too long. And I think it speaks to kind of the way she pursued public life and public service that led to this scenario where really towards the end, I think in a large part, played into a part of her legacy that’s going to be there, right? This last term was one of really absence.
Scott Shafer: Yeah, it’s interesting, though, because I think that, you know, in the last two years have been so difficult for her, you know, physically, mentally and a lot of criticism for not letting go sooner. And yet this week, we’ve really heard very little of that.
Guy Marzorati: You know, I think it’s almost like we folks got it out of the way, right? There’s the last two years have been nothing but bad news for her that I think is kind of opened the door to now, to recall —
Marisa Lagos: To recall the last four, five decades of her service and to recall the recall for five decades of her service and to think about I mean, you know, I don’t want to rush through all this, but we are going to have to take a break soon. But the things that she accomplished, not just as mayor, sort of righting the ship in this city. And, you know, not everybody agrees with her policies then, but I think there was a sense that she was a steadying force. But then also getting to the Senate and, you know, being only one of a handful of women in there and taking on gun control, the assault rifle weapons ban, you know, a decade or two later taking on the CIA with her torture report.
Scott Shafer: Yeah, and, you know, and what that was about really was accountability, holding the CIA accountable. And I think what, you know, we’re in this moment now are San Francisco is, you know, being, you know, criticized all over the place on Fox News and elsewhere for the situation on the streets, exaggerated in some ways. And I think people hearken back maybe to the time she was mayor. She did hold people accountable. Department heads, she expected results. And I think that’s what people are looking for is like we’re spending all this money, what are we getting? And that was the kind of question she would ask.
Marisa Lagos: She continued, like until the end of her life —
Scott Shafer: There’s a mattress on the street.
Marisa Lagos: Holding everyone accountable. She would make that phone call, she would apparently at SFO, all of the workers there wanted to know which side of the plane she was coming in on so they can make sure the runway looked nice.
Guy Marzorati: So they could go on the other side.
Marisa Lagos: Yeah, just push it over there. But I mean, it is. And I think it really does stand in contrast to the type of politics that we see now, especially with the former president and the rhetoric we’re seeing from him. She really deeply respected not just the institution of the Senate, but our government and our democracy. And yeah, it’s a huge loss and a life incredibly lived. Okay, we will take a short break. When we come back, we’ll look ahead to talk about California’s new senator, Laphonza Butler. You’re listening to Political Breakdown from KQED Public Radio.
Marisa Lagos: Welcome back to Political Breakdown here with the politics dream team, Guy Marzorati and Scott Shafer and now we are going to talk about what is next for California, we have a new senator. But Guy I thought we could go back and remember why Gavin Newsom, our governor, was in kind of a pickle.
Guy Marzorati: Kind of boxed himself in.
Marisa Lagos: Tell us about the genesis of this appointment.
Guy Marzorati: Yeah I mean, so this goes back to 2021 when Newsom was facing a recall in the early part of the year and made this pledge on the heels of having appointed Alex Padilla to fill Kamala Harris’ Senate seat that he would appoint a black woman should Feinstein’s seat open up. And it got it was controversial in the short term for people saying, well, you shouldn’t be jumping to any conclusions about DiFi. But in the you know, year since, it’s it has kind of box demand and it really culminated in this appearance on Meet the Press a couple of weeks ago where he was talking to Chuck Todd about this potential appointment. And he used the phrase interim appointment. And Chuck Todd followed up by saying, you know, you would not appoint anyone. And Newsom finished the sentence saying that would run again. And so somehow, in the weeks since, Newsom changed his mind and we can talk about maybe what played into that. But even before he announced Butler’s pick on Sunday, his office had already signaled whoever the name that comes out was going to be. They don’t have to make any promise as far as not running in 2024.
Scott Shafer: Yeah, and I think the anger that was generated in 2021, you know, he appointed Padilla to take Kamala Harris seat and that left the Senate with no black women. Now, Padilla was historic in his own right. He’s the first Latino senator from California. But it did seem that Newsom was making that pledge to help himself in a recall.
Marisa Lagos: There might have a been a recall happening.
Scott Shafer: There was a recall happening. And I’m sure Dianne Feinstein didn’t appreciate that, you know, being basically, you know, you’re kind of speculating about her having to leave the office one way or the other. And then, yeah, he walked it back and said he didn’t want to interfere by putting Barbara Lee in that seat, which is what a lot of women of color, black women in particular, were pushing for and so was Barbara Lee. Barbara Lee said, I will take that job.
Marisa Lagos: We should say, Congresswoman Barbara Lee of Oakland who is running to replace Dianne Feinstein.
Guy Marzorati: What’s curious is, on the merits, it didn’t entirely make sense to say you can only be an interim appointment. He never told Alex Padilla, you can only be an interim appointment.
Marisa Lagos: What is in from a point of putting somebody in a group that has historically struggled to win elections in a seat, it’s to give them the power of incumbency.
Guy Marzorati: But what changed?
Scott Shafer: Well, I think Barbara Lee is maybe a little bit to his left. I mean, let’s say whoever he appoints, whoever it is, is going to be a reflection of him. And if they do things that aren’t out of sync with his own politics, he’s going to have to answer to that, in some ways. He may run for president one day. And I think Barbara Lee is probably a little more liberal than he would like.
Marisa Lagos: And probably older.
Scott Shafer: And also Nancy Pelosi. Let’s face it, Nancy Pelosi has endorsed Adam Schiff, and I think she probably leaned on him not to upset that apple cart —
Marisa Lagos: Or to appoint Schiff. And I think, I do think some of this was new, some sort of exercising some independence from a lot of the party establishment who and it wasn’t like they were all lining up behind one person. But to have Pelosi out there publicly endorsing Schiff, to have Barbara Lee and her allies in the Congressional Black Caucus, calling on him very specifically and very angrily after he demurred. You know, I think that some of it was that. What changed, Guy? I don’t know exactly. One of my guesses is, might be that they talked to a lot of black women who said, I don’t want an interim job. I’m not going to give up the job I have now to take that and for what?
Guy Marzorati: Knowing it would only be for thirteen months.
Scott Shafer: It’s condescending to to say, well, she’s free to run. Like, of course she’s free to run. She can make that choice on her own. With or without his permission.
Marisa Lagos: I got to say, and I and I think and I don’t think from what she said and from what I’ve heard, I don’t think that these conversations were directly with Butler before he offered her the position. But I do think once her name came up and he and his people in his inner circle started thinking about her, I mean, maybe that was what changed, was that they looked at her and said, we don’t want to put those handcuffs on her, right? And she is, I think, really a smart choice. I mean, not only is she very well respected in the California political community for her time leading SEIU and really her, I think, excellent negotiating skills at the table on things like the $15 minimum wage. She’s also our first openly lesbian senator. She is 44 years old and she has been running Emily’s List, a fund raising group. Right. So even though she does not have any household sort of name recognition, I think her ability to build it is probably way far ahead of a lot of potential candidates.
Scott Shafer: It is. But, you know, the time is getting short. You know, she’s got to if she’s going to run, she’s got to have a statement in by November. You know, I think the absolute deadline is December 8th. Yeah, it’s hard to put together a statewide operation. And then, you know, the governor would have to endorse her, right?
Guy Marzorati: She’ll have the name Senator next to her name on the ballot.
Marisa Lagos: A lot of earned media.
Guy Marzorati: A lot of earned media. And I think, you know, for better or worse, the conversation I think, is now going to shift towards Barbara Lee. This was a loss for her not to get this appointment. I also think she’s really going to be splitting a lot of the supporters that Barbara Lee has, both voters and also kind of financial backers. I mean, talking to folks like California Donor Table, Aimee Allison, they’re not upset about Laphonza Butler’s appointment. They’re praising that and saying, oh, you know, we’re trying to figure out a situation in which we can support both of these candidates going forward. That’s tough and I could really see a situation where as we get closer to December, there starts to be calls for Barbara Lee, like, do you want to stay in this race if you’re still going to be in single digits? Because look, as the way the field is right now, it’s not going to take a whole lot to get into the top two primary. I know every Democrat is going to be wearing a Steve Garvey jersey from now until March, because if he gets in the race, I think that’s the only situation where you might have two Democrats. And I think, you know, for Butler, get to what? 20%, 25% of the vote.
Scott Shafer: It’ll be super interesting. I’m sure we’ll see a poll in the next few weeks with her name in it. Just to just get a sense of like who you know, I think we all it’s easy for us. You know, we’re steeped in this stuff to think that everyone is you know, I got a cup of coffee today and I was wearing a black suit because of the funeral, the memorial. And the woman said, oh, you’re wearing you got all dressed up. I said, Yeah, I’m going to a funeral. She goes, Oh, who died? I said, Dianne Feinstein. She looked at me like, Who is that?
Marisa Lagos: Oh, my Lyft driver knew exactly who Dianne Feinstein was, but I had not heard that she had passed away.
Scott Shafer: So it’s just a reality check.
Marisa Lagos: Yeah well we’ve been steeped in this and haven’t had a day off in two weeks. But I do think when you think about Laphonza Butler, I mean, part of this is, you know, going to be her job to introduce herself to people. And to your point, Scott, we know her already. She has been, as I said, the head for almost a decade. She led the largest labor union in the state, which really is sort of one of the biggest advocates for not just working people, but working people of color and women in particular. And, you know, when we spoke to Laphonza Butler back in 2019 here in Political Breakdown, she talked about kind of what led her to that work. And this is part of that conversation.
Laphonza Butler: My mom worked really hard. My dad died when I was 16 years old. He had heart disease. By the time he passed away, he’d had six heart attacks. He had a stroke, he had had a crow, he’d had a heart transplant, got a new heart from an 18 year old who died in a motorcycle accident. So my life was really lived through the eyes of a caregiver. My mother was my father’s caregiver in the last years of of his life and having to understand what families everyday go through when it when it comes to issues like health care.
Scott Shafer: You know, I think when you listen to the fans of Butler, you get an authenticity about her. She’s not like the other people in the Senate, you know, which is sometimes criticized for being, you know, male Yale and pale. She comes from Mississippi, Magnolia, Mississippi. She went to Jackson State University. Her mom was a caregiver. Her dad died. She’s got real life experience. And that was also steeped in the labor movement, organizing nurses and janitors. And it’s it really is a completely different perspective that most U.S. senators have. And we’ll see if she runs or not. But I do think there’s an excitement about it.
Marisa Lagos: And I think we have to think about we’re all here doing the political kind of chess game for her. This is a deeply personal decision. And she’s talked about this in the very few interviews she gave that she values her privacy. She is a black lesbian woman with a daughter. Her daughter was not at the swearing in. I wonder if that was not on purpose. I mean, this is not a time in America where you want to put your family out there to be vulnerable when you are part of those minorities. And so I do think that beyond the sort of political calculations, she’s going to be thinking hard about what kind what public service means to her and if this is worth what is was acknowledged today for Dianne Feinstein, it is something that your family is giving up as well.
Scott Shafer: It must be hard just speaking of giving up, like give up a job, give up the job of being a United States senator when you had a taste of it for, you know, a few weeks, months.
Guy Marzorati: It is just such a unique I mean, I can’t think of anyone else who has the legislative experience Laphonza Butler has, who’s not a politician.
Scott Shafer: Who’s never run.
Marisa Lagos: More legislative experience. You could argue that half the lawmakers in Sacramento in terms of actually negotiating at the table and being in the mix and not just sort of taking a bill from an outside group and running it.
Scott Shafer: From what I heard today at the memorial service, she was definitely working the crowd looking like a candidate, you know, shaking hands, which Adam Schiff was as well. We saw him out there, too. But, yeah, I mean, this is new for her. It’s a new role. But, you know. It’s a different kind of like it’s a different kind of organizing. She’s been an organizer and that’s what campaigns are about.
Marisa Lagos: And so we don’t we know she worked for in tech for a little bit. We won’t gloss over that. There’s plenty of time to talk about that. I’m sure we’ll get a response from listeners if we don’t mention that, but just a minute left, guys. But we got to acknowledge the talk about political earthquakes. Kevin McCarthy is out as speaker. It is chaos in the House in Washington. We, you know, are seeing just I think I mean, talk of former President Trump becoming the next speaker. I mean, it’s wild. 30 seconds, Guy. What are you watching for?
Guy Marzorati: I’m watching for the vulnerable House Republicans in California who have stood in line with Kevin McCarthy on some really conservative votes over the last nine months now might be going free range.
Scott Shafer: And also with a lot less fundraising behind them, because McCarthy was, you know, had a huge haul of money for them to help prop them up. It’s a presidential year that could be more vulnerable anyway. So I think a lot of them are kind of nervous. And, you know, there’s fury on the Republican side. There were seven Republicans that voted to get rid of him and all the Democrats. And so we’re going to be talking to Nancy Pelosi next week. And it’ll be interesting to hear what she has to say. They took her hideaway office away. There’s usually a courtesy given to former speakers. So, yeah, it’s it is dysfunction junction back there in Washington for sure.
Marisa Lagos: All right. We’re going to leave it there. Dianne Feinstein would not be happy to see it. I know that. That’s going to do it for this edition of Political Breakdown. We’re a production of KQED Public Radio. Thanks to Guy Marzorati as always, for joining us. Before we go, we do want to let folks know that our on stage interview with Congresswoman Pelosi is now Monday instead of Tuesday because she’s going to be back in D.C. so the House can maybe pick a new speaker.