WASHINGTON (CN) — Laphonza Butler, California’s newly-minted Democrat senator, will fill a vacancy on the Senate Judiciary Committee left by the late Dianne Feinstein, party leadership announced Tuesday.
Butler, who until recently was president of Democratic political action committee EMILY’s List, is one of several lawmakers slated to assume Feinstein’s committee assignments, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a party caucus meeting Tuesday. The new lawmaker will also pick up assignments on the Senate’s banking, homeland security and rules committees.
Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema was tapped to fill Feinstein’s seat on the Senate Committee on Appropriations, and her colleague Mark Kelly will take the late senator’s place on the upper chamber’s intelligence committee.
Politico first reported Schumer’s announcement.
Each new committee appointment must be approved by the full Senate — but Republicans have signaled that they will work with Democrats to fill the vacancies.
Butler’s appointment to the judiciary panel comes as Senate Democrats are working to quickly confirm the White House’s court nominees, which have been backlogged for months thanks in part to the sluggish pace of new appointments and delayed confirmation votes on the Senate floor.
Carl Tobias, chair of the University of Richmond School of Law, called Butler “an astute pick” for the judiciary committee.
“Butler has compiled a wide spectrum of experience on numerous matters that are within the committee’s expansive jurisdiction,” Tobias said.
California has many federal judges and a busy court system, he observed, so the Golden State’s senators must ensure that any vacancies on those benches are quickly filled. “Senator Butler will have her work cut out for her,” Tobias said, “but she has shown in other contexts that she can get the job done.”
As it stands, Feinstein’s seat on the judiciary panel remains vacant. During a committee hearing Tuesday morning, the late senator’s seat on the dais was marked with a black shroud and a vase of flowers, as it has been since she died.
California Governor Gavin Newsom tapped Butler to serve the remainder of Senator Feinstein’s term. Feinstein died at age 90 on Sept. 29 — Butler was sworn in just a week later.
Feinstein had said she would not seek reelection in 2024, leaving one of Sacramento’s two Senate seats open to a field of Democrat hopefuls, including California Congressman Adam Schiff, Representative Katie Porter and Congresswoman Barbara Lee.
Meanwhile, with the judiciary committee’s Democrat majority on temporarily shaky ground, panel chair Senator Dick Durbin has been pushing for more bipartisan cooperation on the Biden administration’s judicial nominees.
The Senate majority whip has defended a procedural mechanism known as blue slipping, which allows senators to issue letters of approval for judicial nominees selected for their states. While critics have said the process is prone to abuse — lawmakers can withhold their support on a partisan basis — Durbin has positioned blue slipping as more of a bipartisan olive branch.
“I have been criticized by some for defending the right of my Republican colleagues to participate in selecting district court nominees from their home states,” the Illinois Democrat said during a committee hearing Sept. 28, “but there are now 44 district court vacancies eligible to be filled in states with at least one Republican senator.”
For the White House’s more controversial judicial picks, Butler’s presence on the committee will be vital, as Democrats control just a one-seat majority.
The judiciary committee recently grappled with the fallout of a missing Democrat vote when Feinstein, recovering from a case of shingles, was unable to vote in person for three months. During that time, the panel was only able to advance nominees with strong bipartisan support.
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