Laphonza Butler on “Fighting” for Kamala Harris, Serving With JD Vance, and the Threat of a Second Trump Term

Kamala Harris wanted Laphonza Butler’s endorsement. It was 2010 and Harris, the San Francisco district attorney, was in a crowded primary field running for California state attorney general. So she traveled to the Los Angeles office of Butler, who was then the president of a powerful labor union representing long-term care givers. Harris also impressed Butler during the day she spent working alongside one of the SEIU home health care aides in Oakland; the union delivered a key endorsement; and Harris squeaked out a general election win by 0.8%.

Butler, 45, has been a member of Harris’s innermost circle ever since. She is adept at big-picture strategy—for instance, in the words of The Washington Post, providing “the road map for Team Harris: Punch back at Trump’s extreme remarks, then return to pocketbook issues.” She can also assess the granular details of intra-ethnic swing state political dynamics.

Those skills are the product of a career that has taken unexpected turns. After leading a labor union, Butler advised Uber and held a top job at Airbnb, companies not exactly known as friends of organized labor. She went on to be the president of EMILY’s List, which boosts female candidates and pro-choice initiatives. Last fall, California governor Gavin Newsom appointed Butler to fill the remaining 15 months of the late Dianne Feinstein’s US Senate term—a seat Butler quickly announced she would not campaign to win for a full term.

Butler will not lack for employment prospects when her Senate stint ends, especially if Harris defeats Donald Trump, and would be on the short list for a top post in a Harris administration. It is a long way from growing up in Magnolia, Mississippi, population 2,400. “We talk a lot about how things have changed from when we first got started,” Butler tells me when I ask what she and Harris talk about these days. “And we talk about how to solve where we are, as a country.”

Vanity Fair: When you spoke on the first night of the Democratic National Convention, the video screen behind the podium showed an enormous photograph of Vice President Kamala Harris hugging your daughter. I’m guessing that image will be your Christmas card this year.

Senator Laphonza Butler: It’s definitely one of those photos that gets framed. Nylah might have been four or five in that picture. She’s about to be 10, so it’s not as cool to her anymore.

Your DNC speech included a reference to the fact that you and the VP are proud graduates of historically Black colleges. The conservative commentator Megyn Kelly wrote on social media, “Imagine the white person up there: I’m proud to tell you I went to a mostly white university!” Kelly’s agenda is quite clear. But if she’s sitting here instead of me, what do you say to her?

I think I would want to start from a place of curiosity: Megyn, have you ever been on the campus of a historically Black college? Do you know the history of why historically Black colleges were founded in the first place? Do you know the contribution that historically Black colleges make in the spaces of physicians and lawyers and judges and teachers? My assumption is that the answers are no. But I really want to start from this place of genuine curiosity as opposed to judgment, as I would have hoped that she would have done with me if she were actually interested in our nation’s historically Black colleges.

My assumption is that she does know the history and wrote what she did anyway.

Look, I think she probably does, but if I model the behavior I want my daughter to experience, then that’s what I can be held responsible for.

You were much more in demand at the convention with Harris instead of President Joe Biden as the nominee. Did you end the week exhausted, excited, apprehensive?

I had 30 press hits while I was there. I’m exhausted from the amount of work required to execute constantly. I’m energized because it was contagious. I’m anxious because this is still something that the country has never done before. And even if you put the historical nature of the race aside, it still is a very polarized time in our country. And we have this Electoral College system, so it means that to win, you need fewer people in fewer states. And I just can’t imagine what my daughter’s life would be if we as a nation had one more term of Donald Trump.

The Harris campaign had an amazing first month. How does it try to sustain the momentum?

The presidential debate, if everybody keeps their word, is September 10. The vice presidential debate is shortly thereafter. In between, the first ballots are going out. So we have to perform at a high level at those key benchmark times. It’s a deployment of surrogates. It is continued big voter engagements. I don’t necessarily buy into this whole, She’s got to continue to put out big policy after big policy. I don’t know that voters are there, in terms of understanding that depth. But she does have to—both tickets have to—communicate a vision forward for the country.

You were an adviser to the Harris campaign when she ran for the Democratic nomination in 2020. She took many policy stands then—including eliminating private medical insurance, banning fracking, and mandating gun buybacks—that she is abandoning now. What does that say about Harris’s principles?

Yeah, I actually see it a little bit differently. I understand the point that you’re making. What I see is that the core of her position is still the same. It’s a question of, What’s the pathway to get to the solution? I think the vice president still believes that people in one of the wealthiest countries in the world should be able to go to a doctor. Does that mean that it has to be Medicare for All? Does that mean a more robust Affordable Care Act? That’s a policy debate. This issue of fracking—I think the vice president still believes that young people in this country, and families, no matter where they live, should have clean air and clean water. What is the best way to get there and maintain a vibrant workforce and economy? Again, that’s a policy debate, not a core principle diversion. Her principles are exactly the same today as they were before.

Isn’t the idea of Trump being an existential threat to democracy diluted by the Harris campaign’s emphasis on restoring joy to politics?

In private conversations with her, as I’ve gotten to know her over the many years, she rejects false choices. You can save democracy and have joy. The American people have for the last eight years been through an incredibly tough time. Even going back to the beginning of [Barack] Obama’s first term and the recession.

Now we’re sort of back into this economic crisis of persistent inflation. And we see these sort of divisions—we have January 6 happen. So I think that in order to restore the vibrancy in the best of democracy, it really requires human connection. The belief that we are together, connected, in our futures. And I think that’s where joy comes in.

Your value to the Harris inner circle has been described to me as operational, not ideological. Do you think that’s fair?

I think that’s accurate. For me, it’s looking at all sides, understanding that there has to be common ground that we get to, that we clearly are not enemies and this doesn’t have to be adversarial, but how do we find the practical solutions that are right in front of us? And so I have been able to lead an organization like my union. I represented more than 400,000 people. I had an operating budget of nearly $100 million. I was responsible for the statewide politics of a million workers in California. And then apply those skills to EMILY’s List or to Airbnb. Someone who worked for 20 years in the labor movement, then going to work for a technology company—because I approached that experience from a place of curiosity, not judgment. My career has been circuitous. And I think that that offers quite a few gifts and talents and frames of perspective.

You happened to be traveling with Harris in July at the time of the Biden-Trump debate. Afterward, did you think the president should drop out?

I thought the president had earned the right to make a decision on his own terms, that people should absolutely communicate their perception of the facts. But I thought that President Biden deserved some time to be able to digest those facts and come to a decision.

What if the decision had been up to you?

I probably would have rather that he maintained his commitment to be a transitional president earlier, in the primary season. But he also is probably going to be one of the most impactful presidents in my lifetime.

You’re a skilled strategist. How quickly did you start thinking through what it might mean for Harris if Biden left?

Oh, night one. I actually was watching the debate with a group of friends and some folks were like, “He’s got to go.” And I said then to that group of folks, “If you don’t have a clear articulation as to why it is Kamala Harris or why it is not Kamala Harris, we don’t want to be headed into anything where there is going to be great consternation this close to the election, this close to the convention.” Yeah. Night one, I found myself in fighting stance for Kamala Harris.

As a senator, you’ve tried to learn what makes each of your 99 colleagues tick in order to help advance the issues you care about. I’ll throw out a few names: Chuck Schumer.

The success and health of the caucus he cares about a lot. He cares about being able to get to agreement, make a deal. And his grandchildren.

Kyrsten Sinema.

That one’s harder. She cares about making a meaningful contribution to whatever is the challenge in front of us. She’s an avid runner and builds relationships that way. She is probably one of the smartest people that I’ve met in the Senate.

JD Vance.

You know, JD and I are in the same class. I came a little bit later but was invited to be a member of this class with JD, Katie Britt, Peter Welch from Vermont, Ted Budd from North Carolina, Eric Schmitt from Missouri—we talk sports and baseball. We have these dinners together, as a class. Vance—it’s unclear. It’s never clicked. Never. He’s just either not communicative and open, or it’s just opaque.

Yesterday Vance was on TV saying he doesn’t believe Trump would sign a national abortion ban. Should we believe him?

No, of course you shouldn’t. And it’s not because I think he’s a liar, but because they literally have said anything and everything since the Supreme Court decision two years ago. It was Trump bragging, “I’m responsible for taking down Roe,” to “It’s right where people say it should be, in the hands of the states. Nothing is really gone,” to “People who don’t have children aren’t as invested in the country as people who do have children.” Why should any rational, red-blooded American believe anything of what they say? It all is political theater. This is just another opportunity where they’re willing to say anything to try to fool the American people into believing that they stand with them, when they don’t.

You are only the third Black female US senator, the second openly lesbian woman senator, and you’re the first Black LGBTQ+ senator. There are other senators who think gay people are sinful or that there’s somehow something wrong with them. Have you felt any of that tension first-hand?

I haven’t, but I don’t spend a whole lot of time trying to think about what they think about me, either. I have been welcomed by all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. I’m sure there are those who have their thoughts about lots of different parts of my identity. They have wisely kept it to themselves. But not a day goes by that I am not aware of my onlys and single-digit-ness.

Why not try to win a full Senate term of your own?

It’s probably going to sound really flip, but the answer is, I didn’t want to. It was not about whether I wanted to campaign. But do I want to be a United States senator? Serving out one full term would mean my daughter would be 16. And being a present parent, the kind of commitment I had made to her prior to this opportunity—I wouldn’t have been keeping my word to the most important person to whom my word matters.

I am confident you will stay busy, especially if Harris is elected. Is there a job you could see yourself doing in a potential administration?

If the president of the United States asked you to do something, you at least have to consider it.