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SACRAMENTO – From Gavin Newsom’s time as a young San Francisco mayor through more than two decades of public life, Alex Padilla has been a staunch ally.
As chairman of the Los Angeles City Council, Mr. Padilla introduced Mr. Newsom to important union and Latino leaders. As a state senator, Mr. Padilla presided over Mr. Newsom’s first short-lived campaign for governor. And as California’s Secretary of State, Mr. Padilla conferred a key early endorsement that helped Mr. Newsom win the governor’s seat in 2018.
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Now Mr Newsom is in a position to reciprocate: he must nominate someone to fill the soon-vacant U.S. Senate seat of Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. Although many names have been thrown to succeed Ms Harris, Mr Padilla has emerged as the frontrunner, according to more than half a dozen advisers, policy consultants and fellow lawmakers familiar with the governor’s thinking.
Yet nearly a month after Ms Harris was elected, Mr Newsom has yet to name a successor – and the pressure is mounting.
“Look, all roads lead to Alex Padilla,” said Nathalie Rayes, president of the Latino Victory Fund, which has been running a “Pick Padilla” campaign since August. “I think the longer he waits – well, I would have done that a long time ago, but I’m not the Governor of California.”
Since President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. chose Ms Harris as vice-president in August, the question of her successor has been a subject of high-stakes speculation. Mr Newsom faces extraordinary cross currents of factional rivalry and identity politics in a state where the Democratic Party is completely defined by both.
He spoke of the Senate appointment not as a political trinket he is eager to do without, but as a heavy task that is more likely to generate grudges than personal gratitude and popular excitement. That sense of imminent danger has only worsened in recent days, following news that Mr Newsom broke his own administration’s public health guidelines to attend an extravagant birthday party at French Laundry restaurant. for a longtime political advisor.
Critics seized on the misstep, adding to the challenges Mr Newsom already faces as his state grapples with a terrifying rise in Covid-19, lingering problems in its unemployment benefit system and impending loss of funds stimulus packages that subscribe to temporary shelter. for tens of thousands of homeless during the pandemic.
Asked about the Senate appointment last week, Mr Newsom dodged.
“This decision has not yet been made,” he said, speaking from his home, where he was in quarantine after three of his four children were found to have been in contact with a police officer. California Highway Patrol which subsequently tested positive for Covid-19. .
He said he had not set a timeline for the decision, other than that, it must be made by Jan. 20, when Ms Harris is sworn in as vice president. But, he added, “progress has been made.”
Uncertainty gave way to the lobbying of a whole series of aspirants and their political representatives. For a few weeks it appeared that the list of candidates for the post continued to grow rather than shrink towards possible selection.
Democratic leaders have sought to pull Newsom in different directions, playing on what they see as his short and long-term political aspirations. Some argue he needs to nominate a black candidate if he ever hopes to win a Democratic presidential primary, others that he needs to nominate a Latino to win a comfortable re-election in 2022, still others than Ms Harris must be replaced by another woman. or that he must appease the progressives if he is to govern successfully in an ongoing fiscal crisis.
This is in addition to the foundational fundamentals of the statewide campaign that the governor and successor to Senator Harris will have to do in 2022, when their term expires. California, the most populous state, has a myriad of subcultures – north and south, coastal and inland – and the primary countryside alone can cost millions of dollars.
Although Republicans make up less than a quarter of registered voters in the state, another roughly third of the electorate has no party preferences and turnout is declining in off-year elections. Whoever Mr Newsom names will need not only the experience, but also the money, the campaign trail and the charisma to get Democrats from the Mexican border to the Oregon border.
Mr Newsom has had conversations with a few potential candidates, although he does not appear to have conducted formal interviews for the position, people familiar with the process said.
Mr Padilla, 47, has become a favorite with Latin American lawmakers, advocacy groups and a number of labor officials, and his circle of political advisers overlaps considerably with Newsom. The second son of Mexican-born parents – a short-lived cook from Jalisco and a housekeeper from Chihuahua – Mr. Padilla made his way to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, graduating in 1994 in mechanical engineering.
He and his siblings still live within five miles of the home they grew up in in Pacoima, Calif., In the San Fernando Valley. His original plan, he says, was to work in the aerospace industry, but the anti-immigrant policies that swept through California in the early 1990s propelled him into political activism.
“It was really a wake-up call,” he said last week, chopping onions for pumpkin chili as he spoke from home. Relatives were chatting in the background; he and his wife, Angela, have three children and his stepmother lives with them. “I knew I would have to do my part or that our community would continue to be a scapegoat.”
After graduating he worked in the office of Senator Dianne Feinstein. In 1999, he was a 26-year-old city councilor representing his old neighborhood. In 2001, he was the youngest president of Los Angeles City Council.
In the State Senate, where he spent eight years, Mr. Padilla presided over Mr. Newsom’s 2009 gubernatorial candidacy before Jerry Brown entered the race and Mr. Newsom retired, running. more like lieutenant governor.
In 2014, Mr. Padilla ran to the Secretary of State’s office on a promise to register one million new California voters. As a result of legislation it pushed to register Californians to vote when they get a driver’s license, the state added more than 4 million.
Exit polls have shown that a third of California’s electorate this year is Latino, a group that makes up 40% of the state’s population. Yet the state never elected a Latino senator or governor. Mr Newsom was instrumental in ensuring the lockout continued in the 2018 election, when he defeated one of the state’s top Latin American Democrats, the former mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa, during a primary election.
“The two political parties have failed to defend the needs of a growing electorate,” said Sonja Diaz, director of the Latino Policy and Politics Initiative at the University of California, Los Angeles. Choosing a Latino for one of the most powerful positions in the country, she added, would help turn the tide.
But other Latino candidates also have supporters. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, 62, raced and won statewide and represented Los Angeles in Congress; his name also appeared as a potential member of the Biden cabinet.
And Mayor Robert Garcia of Long Beach, the city’s first openly gay mayor, has an enthusiastic base. In addition to running what would be the largest city of many other states, Mr. Garcia’s history-making biography and personal charisma have won him the attention of the National Democratic Party.
On Wednesday, Mr Garcia – who has been supporting Gov. Newsom since 2009 – said tackling a coronavirus outbreak hitting Los Angeles County was his priority for now and would not speak at length about the Senate vacancy.
“Anyone would be honored to serve their country in this way,” said Garcia, 42, “but I will support whoever the governor chooses.”
If Mr. Newsom elevates a state officer like Mr. Padilla or Mr. Becerra to the Senate, that would also create a new position to fill – potentially offering him a consolation prize for a person or group disappointed with his Senate decision. .
Still, active campaigns are underway to urge Mr Newsom to replace Ms Harris with a woman, especially a black woman. Led by longtime State Democrats like Willie Brown and dollar-dollar female donor groups, they argue that when Ms. Harris steps down and takes up her new post, the Senate will once again have no black women. The number of women of color in the bedroom would drop by a quarter to just three: Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, Mazie Hirono of Hawaii and Catherine Cortez-Masto of Nevada.
At least two black women from the United States House delegation are continuing their appointments: Reps Barbara Lee, 74, and Karen Bass, 67, though Ms Lee is seen as riding the much more determined campaign for the post. . Ms Bass, who was approved for vice-presidency last summer, is also under consideration for potential jobs in the Biden administration.
Neither approved the governor in the 2018 Democratic primary. But both women are highly regarded on the left, as is a third member of the House delegation who wants to join the Senate, Representative Ro Khanna, 44 years, former co-chair of Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign.
The state’s Asian-American leaders also encouraged Mr. Newsom to consider choosing a member of the increasingly organized community, such as Mr. Khanna or Representative Judy Chu, who chairs the Asia-Pacific American caucus. in the room.
Another prominent progressive, Representative Katie Porter of Orange County, is seen as a likely candidate for the Senate at some point, but perhaps more likely to seek the seat currently held by Ms Feinstein, who is 87 years old. and announced this week that she was resigning. as the main democrat of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
There are, however, practical reasons why it may make sense for Mr Newsom to avoid an appointment from the House. Democrats are only expected to hold a tiny majority in the House in January, and that number could decline further if lawmakers accept nominations for jobs in the Biden administration.
Some Democrats have also suggested a long-term option where Mr Newsom could appoint a distinguished figure at the end of their public life, who would serve the last two years of Ms Harris’ tenure without seeking re-election – someone like Dolores Huerta . , the civil rights and union leader, who is 90, or Mr. Brown, who is 82.
For now, Mr. Padilla has played down the urgency of Mr. Newsom’s decision.
“He’s a deliberate person with tons on his plate,” Mr. Padilla said. “There are forest fires. There is Covid. He has a budget due in January. This is just another important element. “
But Ms. Rayes of the Latino Victory Fund was less patient.
“I know other people have their favorites, and I guess he’s really feeling the pressure,” she said. “But it would be easier to just hang out with it.”
Shawn Hubler reported from Sacramento and Alexander Burns from Rehoboth Beach, Del. Jill Cowan and Jennifer Medina contributed reporting from Los Angeles.
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