California gets 1st Latino US senator

LOS ANGELES — California is getting its first Latino U.S. senator. For Gov. Gavin Newsom, it’s a political gamble.

The Democratic governor named minister of State Alex Padilla, the son of Mexican immigrants, to fill the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. When Padilla goes to Washington, the former state legislator will become California’s first Latino senator since the state’s founding 170 years ago.

In picking a personal friend and fellow Democrat, Newsom had his eye on history and pragmatism, he turned to someone he could trust with a year of uncertainty looming, including a possible recall election targeting the governor while the pandemic rages unabated.

Newsom also rejected pleas from a host of prominent Black leaders to replace Harris, the Senate’s only Black woman, with another African American woman, such as U.S. Reps. Karen Bass or Barbara Lee.

Source: Border Report