Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) has tapped California Secretary of State Alex Padilla to replace Vice President-elect Kamala Harris as the Golden State’s junior U.S. senator.
Padilla, the son of Mexican immigrants, will become California’s first Latino senator.
The Los Angeles Times reports:
At age 26, Padilla won a seat on the Los Angeles City Council during the anti-immigrant tumult of the 1990s after California voters approved measures requiring “English-only” public schools and banning immigrants who were in the U.S. illegally from government assistance and services. Padilla, who earned a degree in mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, went on to become the city’s youngest council president, a state senator and California’s current, two-term secretary of state.
The election of Democratic President-elect Joe Biden and Harris in November handed Newsom one of his most consequential and politically perilous opportunities in his first two years as California governor — deciding who to appoint to fill Harris’ seat in the Senate, among the most coveted political offices in the nation.
Newsom has faced months of relentless lobbying and pressure from powerful constituencies within the Democratic Party, even from some of his closest advisors.
Newsom said the responsibility was something he wouldn’t “wish even on my worst enemy” because his decision, no matter whom he appointed, was destined to raise the ire of those whose wishes were denied. But choosing Padilla also provides Newsom an opportunity to salve some of those relationships — the governor must now fill Padilla’s vacancy as secretary of state.
Padilla will face re-election in 2022.
The post Gov. Newsom Taps His Secretary of State To Fill Kamala Harris’ Senate Seat appeared first on American Action News.
from American Action News https://ift.tt/3azIb6R
https://ift.tt/eA8V8J