Laphonza Butler

Kamala Harris (L) with Laphonza Butler

Laphonza Butler is President of EMILY's List. She has been a Director at Airbnb and is listed on the Board of the Children's Defense Fund as of July 7 2022. She has been a fellow at the Sandler Phillips Center.

She previously served as president of SEIU Local 2015, a union representing more than 325,000 nursing home and home-care workers throughout California. SEIU Local 2015 is the largest union in California and the largest long-term care local in the country.

Previously, Ms. Butler served for seven years as President of SEIU United Long Term Care Workers (ULTCW) and also as SEIU's Prperty Services Division Director in which she was responsible for the strategic direction of the more than 250,000 janitors, security officers, window cleaners, and food service workers across the country.

Ms. Butler also serves as an SEIU International Vice President and President of the SEIU California State Council. Additionally, she serves as a Board Member for the National Children’s Defense Fund and the Bay Area Economic Council Institute, is a fellow for the MIT Community Innovators Lab, and formerly was Director for the Board of Governors of the Los Angeles branch of the Federal Reserve System.

She was appointed to the UC Board of Regents in August, 2018 by Governor Jerry Brown for a 12 year term ending in 2030.

Bio

Laphonza Butler's bio verbatim from EMILY's List:

Laphonza Butler is the president of EMILY's List. As a leader in Democratic politics, campaign strategy, and the labor movement for two decades, she has dedicated her life to empowering women and supporting them in finding their voice, and using it to make meaningful change.

Prior to joining EMILY's List, Butler served as Director of Public Policy and Campaigns in North America for Airbnb. She also was a partner at SCRB Strategies, a political consulting firm where she was a strategist for candidates running up and down the ballot and a senior advisor to Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign.

Butler spent 10 years as the president of the biggest union in California, and the nation’s largest homecare workers union, SEIU Local 2015. She was elected to this position at just 30 years old, one of the youngest to take on this role. As president, Butler was the leading voice, strategist, and architect of efforts to address pay inequity for women in California and a top advocate for raising the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour – the first state in the nation to do so, benefiting millions of working women in low wage jobs. That effort also gave hundreds of thousands of home workers access to paid time off.

Previously, Butler served for seven years as President of SEIU United Long Term Care Workers (ULTCW), and also as SEIU’s Property Services Division Director in which she was responsible for the strategic direction of the more than 250,000 janitors, security officers, window cleaners, and food service workers across the country. She also served as an SEIU International Vice President and President of the SEIU California State Council.

Throughout her career, Butler is highly regarded as a strategist working to elect Democratic women candidates in political offices across California and nationally. A long-time supporter of Kamala Harris in her California runs, Butler was a key leader in Vice President Harris’s presidential campaign. She served as a senior advisor to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in California during the primary and general elections. Most recently, Butler was a campaign operative behind the campaign to make the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors an all-women for the first time in its history with the election of Holly Mitchell.

She is a member of the University of California Board of Regents and a board member for the Children's Defense Fund and BLACK PAC.

Butler grew up in Magnolia, MS, and attended one of the country’s premier HBCUs, Jackson State University. She lives in Maryland with her partner Neneki Lee and their daughter Nylah.

Education

Jackson State University Bachelor of Arts (BA), Political Science and Government. 1997 – 2001.

Collective PAC congratulations

Collective PAC Pride

Horvath endorsement

In 2022, the Muslim Democratic Club of Southern California backed Bob Hertzberg in the race for L.A. County’s 3rd Supervisorial District. State Sens. Mike McGuire, Melissa Hurtado, Tom Umberg and John Laird also backed Hertzberg. Supervisor Holly Mitchell backed his opponent, Lindsey Horvath, as did Northridge Indivisible and Emily’s List President Laphonza Butler.

Campaign turmoil

November 2019, as the California senator crisscrosses the country trying to revive her sputtering presidential bid, aides at her fast-shrinking headquarters are deep into the finger-pointing stages. And much of the blame is being placed on campaign manager Juan Rodriguez.

After Rodriguez announced dozens of layoffs and re-deployments in late October to stem overspending, three more staffers at headquarters here were let go and another quit in recent days.

Amid the turmoil, some aides have gone directly to campaign chair Maya Harris, the candidate’s sister, and argued that Rodriguez needs to be replaced if Harris has any hope of a turnaround, according to two officials.

“It’s a campaign of id,” said one senior Harris official, laying much of the blame on Rodriguez, but also pointing to a leaderless structure at the top that’s been allowed to flail without accountability. “What feels right, what impulse you have right now, what emotion, what frustration,” the official added. The person described the current state of the campaign in blunt terms: “No discipline. No plan. No strategy.”

The internal strife is the latest discouraging development for Harris’ once-encouraging candidacy. She has slid into low single digits and is now banking on a top-tier performance in Iowa to pull her back into contention. Inside the campaign, which had already experienced staff shakeups before the layoffs, rank and file aides are fed up with the weak leadership and uncertainty around internal communication, planning and executing on a clear vision. They say the constant shifting has eroded trust in the upper ranks.

While staff ire centers on Rodriguez, his defenders argue he has stood loyally by the candidate despite being relegated to a role akin to deputy campaign manager to Maya Harris. They say he’s had to get Maya Harris’ buy-in even on routine decisions, which were often slow to materialize, further undermining staff’s confidence in him as a supervisor.

During a recent meeting, aides pressed Rodriguez and Maya Harris for answers about campaign strategy. At one point during the more than two-hour discussion, Maya Harris herself turned to Rodriguez and challenged him in front of about 20 staffers, and several more listening in by phone. Rodriguez seemed unprepared for the exchange, according to people present. They walked out with little consensus about how to prioritize upcoming events and strategy around advertising.

Still, others point to Rodriguez’s constant yielding to Maya Harris as a reason he should be held accountable for the campaign's failures. “It was his decision,” another aide said of the fraying pact, adding there were opportunities for him to take control. “He chose to defer to Maya.”

The unorthodox composition of the campaign is further complicated by other factors. Rodriguez’s California business partners — Ace Smith, Sean Clegg and Laphonza Butler — are senior Harris advisers atop a flat leadership structure that includes just a few other outside voices, including ad maker Jim Margolis, pollster David Binder and Maya Harris. Critics of the arrangement say it has contributed to an insular culture and reinforced the business partners’ long-term obligations to one another.

2018 United State of Women Summit

Laphonza Butler was a speaker at the 2018 United State of Women Summit.

Hillary for America

Laphonza Butler was a Senior Advisor Hillary for America, May 2016 – Nov 2016.

October 19, 2017 Gala

Awardees

• Standing Up for Justice Award - Rep. Maxine Waters
• Community in Action Awards - Luisa Blue, External Vice President Service Employees International Union, Jeanette Vazquez, Fullerton School Board Member
• Dreamer in Action Awards - Sameerah Haque, Hyun Joong Kim, Eric Yang

Host Committee

• Laphonza Butler
• David Huerta
• Wan-mo Kang, Esq.
• Stephen K. Kurumada, DDS
• Joann Lee
• David Lin
• Angela Oh
• Courtni Pugh
• The Honorable Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas
• Myungsoo Seok
• Paul Song
• Bill Wong

Here to stay rally

Rally and musical and art performances on Saturday, January 14, 2017, starting at 11 a.m. at 501 North Main St, 90012, LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes next to La Placita, Los Angeles.

Join us to stand up for the values of love, compassion and family as we begin a campaign of righteous resistance. We will join hands and stand together to oppose criminalization, mass deportations, and hate crimes. We are #HereToStay and we shall not be moved.

Speakers include: California State Controller Betty Yee; Assemblymember Jimmy Gomez; Miguel Santana, City Administrative Officer, City of Los Angeles; Angelica Salas, CHIRLA; Rusty Hicks, LAC Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, Laphonza Butler, SEIU; Arlene Inouye, UTLA; and Tom Steyer, Next Gen Climate.

Hosted by (partial list):

African Coalition, Black Immigrant Network (BIN), Bend the Arc, California Dream Network (CDN), Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), Center for Community Change (CCC), Fair Immigration Reform Movement (FIRM), Human Rights Campaign, Korean Resource Center (KRC), Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, Mi Familia Vota National Immigration Law Center, NextGen California, SEIU California, SEIU 721, SEIU 2015, SEIU UHWW, SEIU USWW, UCLA Dream Center, UNITE HERE, UTLA

CPD-ACCE gala

The Center for Popular Democracy would like to thank everyone who made October’s 2016 joint CPD-ACCE gala a huge success! Over 175 guests packed the room at Impact Hub in Oakland to support CPD and ACCE and to celebrate this year’s inspiring honorees: Laphonza Butler, president of SEIU Local 2015, Guillermo Mayer, president and CEO of Public Advocates, and John Avalos, San Francisco District 11 board of supervisors members and Local Progress board chair.

We would like to give a special shout out to our major sponsors, CFT, Josh Pesdchtalt, SEIU Local 2015, SEIU International, Susan Sandler and Steve Phillips, Rigo Valdez of UFCW 770, and the San Francisco Foundation.

2011 hearing

Saturday, April 9th, 2011, at the Japanese American National Museum, 369 East 1st St., Los Angeles, the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance held a hearing on the the stories and testimonies of Asian Pacific American workers and their struggles to organize. Features panels on healthcare, immigrant rights, and the involvement of youth in the labor movement. The event included performances by Progressive Taiko and KIWA’s Cultural Resistance Committee drumming group.

Speakers were;

• Congresswoman Judy Chu

• Assemblymembers Mike Eng and Warren Furutani

• Laphonza Butler (SEIU ULTCW, President)

• Gregory Cendana (APALA, Executive Director)

• Kent Wong (UCLA Labor Center, Director)

• Raahi Reddy SEIU 521 Chief of Staff

Jan Tokumaru and Lucia Lin of the LA Chapter were critical to the success of the event, which was held at the beautiful Japanese American National Museum. The hearing was covered extensively in Fuse TV and ethnic press, including in Xinhua News, the Philippine Times, Indian Times, and Chinese Radio International.