The Weekly Lift - October 5, 2023

This week's selection of headlines and articles*:

Geopolitics: In An Israeli Oasis, A Model for Peace, If Messy And Imperfect

The New York Times (US) reports that "from a distance, the cemetery looks much like any other in Israel, but examine the tombs closely and a startling fact is revealed: Here are buried Jews, Muslims and Christians.

The graveyard lies in the Oasis of Peace, a small village off the main highway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and home to some 70 Arab and Jewish families — all citizens of Israel — who have moved here from across the country with the intention of creating a shared life, side by side.

In this village, children learn both Arabic and Hebrew in school, and celebrate Hanukkah, Ramadan and Christmas.

“I had a beautiful childhood here,” said Nur Najjar, 34, who was born in the village to the community’s first Arab family. “I felt completely free, which is a rare thing as an Arab girl living in Israel.”

The school’s principal is a Palestinian citizen of Israel, as the village’s Arab residents prefer to be called. The manager of its spiritual center — a domed prayer and meditation room for all residents, regardless of faith — is Jewish. After a recent election, the head of the local council is Jewish; his predecessor was Palestinian.

This balance of powers stands out at a time when Israel is more divided than ever and the prospects for resolving the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians seem to be fading.

Although the village’s population is a minuscule fraction of Israel’s total — and is composed only of people who have consciously sought out this level of coexistence — the residents here still hope it can model for a different kind of future.

“When you live here, being racist is unnatural," said Amit Kitain, 40, whose family was among the village’s first Jewish residents. “The fact that you’re growing up together makes a huge difference.”

The village — known in Israel by its Hebrew-Arabic bilingual name, Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam — was founded by Bruno Hussar, a monk, born in Egypt to a Jewish family, who later converted to Christianity. In 1972, he approached a monastery in a depopulated Palestinian village and pitched an idea he’d been mulling for years: building a place where Christians, Jews and Muslims could live together.

The monks leased him land on a nearby barren hill. Father Hussar then moved there alone, converting a bus into his new home, and set about promoting his vision.

During its founding years, the village lacked basic necessities, and pioneering residents had to walk to the nearest town to shower. Some of the first arrivals didn’t last, but others were willing to swap comfortable homes for candlelit tin shacks and started families here.

In 1994, the village gained official governmental recognition, and with that came water and electricity.

Over time, the village garnered a reputation as a pit stop for leaders who wanted to burnish their credentials as global peacemakers — among them the Dalai Lama and Hillary Clinton — by having their pictures taken with the Palestinian and Jewish children at the school.

Since its early years, the village has been evenly split between Palestinian and Jewish families. Despite a recent expansion, and with a couple dozen new housing units being built, there’s still a long waiting list of families eager to live here.

The village honors all three of the region’s major monotheistic religions, but most residents practice a more secular approach to life, and there is no temple, mosque or church here, although many residents still identify as Jewish, Muslim or Christian.

To many, the village’s ability to deepen empathy — without entirely eliminating the agonies of a deep-seated conflict — is encapsulated in an event from a quarter century ago.

In 1997, just as the first generation of children raised in the village were becoming adults, one of its sons, Tom Kitain, was killed in a plane crash on his way to Lebanon to serve as a combat soldier in the Israel Defense Forces.

“My dad always said Tom’s funeral was the only time Palestinians wept walking behind the coffin of an Israeli soldier,” said Shireen Najjar, 43, Nur’s older sister.

But his death also highlighted that even in a village dedicated to peace, tensions and heated disagreements are unavoidable.

His family suggested commemorating his life by naming after him the village’s basketball court, where he had spent much of his time. Some other residents, mostly Palestinians, raised strenuous objections, seeing Tom as a soldier actively participating in the occupation and oppression of their own people.

The village held a vote and, after intense debate, came down in favor of the memorial. Today, a plaque hangs at the court’s entrance that reads “In memory of our Tom Kitain, a child of peace who was killed in war.”

Israel’s Jewish citizens must join the military right after graduating high school. But unlike most who serve, the village’s soldiers have to face a dual reality when coming home on weekends: walking past their Palestinian neighbors with rifles slung over their shoulders.

Amit Kitain, Tom’s brother, found it difficult to find his place in the army, switching units several times and avoiding being stationed in the West Bank. He also found it hard to return to the village after his military service.

“One of the things that the Palestinians here have difficulty with is the fact that some of us are going to the army,” he said. “But for us, it was a question of loyalty.”

Like others who grew up here, he wound up leaving. Though the village is made up of mostly of middle-class residents, with many doctors, lawyers and professors, less integrated areas of Israel offer more job opportunities for young people.

The Najjar sisters departed as well. Shireen moved to Jerusalem’s Old City, where she said she endured regular interrogations by soldiers at checkpoints just to get to her house. The difference from where she was raised was troubling, she said, and she began to worry about her two oldest boys, who started talking about martyrdom as toddlers.

“I didn’t want my kids to grow up and resist the occupation because that was naturally where they were headed if we stayed in the Old City,” she said. “That’s why I came back.”

Amit Kitain and Nur Najjar also returned. “I was part of an experiment, some of it worked and some didn’t, but we are continuing the experiment with our kids,” Mr. Kitain said. “It’s a statement against the status quo, saying that things can be different.”

While the village has obviously had a profound influence on the lives of its residents, have the five decades of coexistence delivered any concrete lessons for the broader conflict?

Isabela Dos Santos, who is writing her doctoral dissertation at the University of Toronto on her research of the village, said people’s idea of peace can be so sanitized, and so idealized, that “it becomes this thing that is really, really far-off the horizon.”

“The contribution that I think the village makes,” she continued, “is showing that this idea of peace is complicated and complex, and it goes through seasons of imperfection, but it’s not this far-off impossible goal.”

On a recent afternoon, the community gathered for an end-of-summer pool party. The children splashed around the pool while their parents chatted on the shaded grass. It was difficult to tell which family was Arab, which was Jewish — and why the distinction mattered.

“We can live together,” Mr. Kitain said. “It’s not a dream, it can really happen.”

Society: Afghan Poppy Cultivation Falls By Eighty Five Per Cent Under Taliban Rule, New Analysis Shows

The Telegraph (UK) reports that "poppy cultivation in Afghanistan, the long-standing centre of global opium production, is estimated to have fallen by 85 per cent following the Taliban’s rise to power, new analysis shows.

In April last year, the group’s religious leaders prohibited poppy farming across the country. More than 12 months on, the ban is being described by experts as “the most successful counter-narcotics effort in human history”.

Nationwide poppy cultivation is below 30,000 hectares for 2023, compared to more than 210,000 hectares in 2022, according to satellite imagery analysis from Alcis, a geographic information services company.

Regionally, the provinces of Helmand, Farah and Nimroz have recorded the greatest reductions in cultivation, at 99, 95 and 91 per cent, respectively, Alcis said.

“There is now little doubt that farmers across vast swathes of the country abandoned opium production this year,” the analysis said.

After a year-long ban, experts are waiting to see if the Taliban’s edict will last for a second season, which starts each November with the planting of poppy seeds.?

“We are in uncharted waters,” said Dr David Mansfield, a UK expert on illicit economies in Afghanistan, in comments that accompanied Alcis’ analysis.

The last time the Taliban were in power, Dr Mansfield explained, their crackdown on poppy cultivation was swiftly ended following 9/11 and the regime’s subsequent collapse.?

“It could be argued that there is much greater potential for a more enduring ban this time round, given that when the Taliban seized Kabul in August 2021, they inherited a very different country with established government institutions and a much larger economy,” he added.

Graeme Smith, an Afghanistan expert at Crisis Group, told the Telegraph in July that the Taliban crackdown has so far been “the most successful counter-narcotics effort in human history, according to the volume of drugs taken off the market”.

However, Dr Mansfield said there “is already considerable evidence that the current ban has not been uniformly accepted by the rural population or by those within the Taliban’s own ranks responsible for implementing it.”

Alcis’ analysis shows that poppy cultivation increased from 13,803 hectares to 15,391 hectares in the mountainous Badakhshan province throughout 2023. It said there has also been “persistent cultivation in the upper reaches of the mountains of southern Nangarhar”.

“When the economic impact of a ban on poppy cultivation is felt collectively across a growing population, local resistance can quickly escalate, prompting those in the districts responsible for enforcement to retreat, unwilling to impose further losses on their own families, neighbours, and communities,” said Dr Mansfield.

It’s estimated the Taliban’s poppy ban has wiped out the equivalent of 450,000 full-time jobs in agriculture – a major hit to an economy still reeling from drought, conflict and cuts to development programmes.

By itself, the Afghan opiate economy, including domestic consumption and exports, accounted for between 9 and 14 per cent per cent of the country’s GDP in 2021."

Global Development: In Brazil, The Dynamism of Fintechs Endures

Le Monde (France) reports that "stunned by the mountain of documents and fees required when he opened his bank account in Brazil in 2011, David Vélez, a Colombian entrepreneur, sunks an opportunity. Two years later, he launched Nubank, a digital bank with no management fees.

Since then, the Brazilian start-up has experienced a meteoric rise: in just ten years, it has conquered more than 80 million customers, becoming the most popular digital bank in the world in 2021. It has since been ahead of WeBank, a subsidiary of the Chinese giant Tencent and its 300 million customers.

Nubank's success illustrates the dynamism of Brazilian fintech: between 2013 and 2023, according to data from the Distrito innovation platform, nearly 1,931 financial start-ups were born in the country, now their first market in Latin America and the eighth largest in the world. Among these, eight are unicorns: companies valued at more than $1 billion (about €942 million).

How to explain such a success? "Brazil has all the factors for fintech to take off," analyzes Ricardo Joshua, CEO of Pismo, a unicorn that specializes in storing bank data in the cloud. In addition to "a huge market" (216 million inhabitants) and Brazil's "human capital", he welcomes the policies of the Central Bank: "They have promoted the construction of a fertile ecosystem for financial start-ups. ”

As early as 2013, the Central Bank adopted a law to encourage the entry of new competitors into the payments sector, then dominated by five major banks: Banco do Brasil, Bradesco, Caixa Economica, Itau and Santander. "This law has made the market more accessible, easy and simple for new entrants," explains David Perez, president of the ABFintechs association, which represents more than 700 fintechs in Brazil. "More than 300 companies have thus emerged in the space of a few years. ”

Seven years later, faced with the widespread use of digital transactions during the pandemic, the Central Bank launched PIX, a free and instant payment system to promote the financial inclusion of the population.

"This has encouraged the massive banking of businesses and individuals," notes Mr. Perez. According to Central Bank data, between February 2020 and December 2021, more than 16.6 million people opened an account in a financial institution.

Many of them have turned to digital banks: according to the consulting firm Finder, 42.7% of Brazilian adults have an account in a fintech. Online banks are particularly popular with young people: according to a survey by fintech Mambu, half of 18-35-year-olds have their main account in one of them.

"It only took me twenty minutes to open my account! ", recalls Paulo Henrique, 27 years old. This "motortaxi" driver, a resident of the Babilonia favela in southern Rio de Janeiro, who registered with Nubank in 2021. "To open an account in a classic bank, I should have queued and brought documents. It was too bureaucratic! ”

However, fintechs are not yet satisfied by their success. The banking sector remains concentrated, allowing dominant banks to impose high interest rates. Result: 18% of the population still does not have a bank account. "Fintech still have many alternative and innovative solutions to implement," says Mr. Perez.

New measures by the Central Bank could facilitate this task: since 2021, it has been multiplying regulations in favor of "open finance", which seeks to promote the sharing of customer banking data between financial institutions. "This would allow fintechs to become more efficient and offer customers more personalized services," explains Mr. Perez.

However, an obstacle could slow down the growth of fintechs: following the pandemic and in order to combat inflation, the Central Bank maintains a high key interest rate, set at 12.75%.

According to Rafael Ragazi, financial analyst and partner at Nord Research, this "redreases investors' appetite for new initiatives". Investments in fintechs fell from $3,737 million (€3,528 million) to $1,652 million (€1,559 million) between 2021 and 2022, according to the Distrito innovation platform.

Fintechs "are currently facing the challenge of growing with less capital," explains Gustavo Gierun, founder and CEO of Distrito. "The ability of entrepreneurs to adapt to this context is fundamental to ensuring their success. However, Mr. Gierun remains confident about the future of the sector: "We continue to think that technology will remain the main source of value creation for the economy and society in the coming decades. The future remains, a priori, brilliant.”

Geopolitics: U.N. Approves Kenya-Led Security Mission To Help Haiti Stamp Out Gangs

The Washington Post (US) reports that "the United Nations Security Council on Monday approved a yearlong multinational security mission for Haiti, led by Kenya, aimed at cracking down on rampant gang violence that has unraveled life for many on the Caribbean nation.

The 15-member Council voted to authorize a mission that would guard critical infrastructure such as airports, ports, schools, hospitals and key traffic intersections, and carry out “targeted operations” along with the Haitian National Police. Kenya has pledged at least 1,000 security personnel, and several other nations are expected to offer other resources.

Nearly 3,000 people were killed in Haiti from October last year until June, as gangs took over large patches of the country, particularly Port-au-Prince, the capital, according to the United Nations. Many neighborhoods have cleared out as people have fled widespread murders, kidnappings and extortion.

Gangs aligned with political parties have strengthened their grip on the country since the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Mo?se. No municipal, legislative or parliamentary elections have been held in years, creating a power vacuum. One goal of the Kenyan-led mission is to create the conditions for a safe election.

The Council voted 13 in favor of the resolution, with Russia and China abstaining.

Haiti’s foreign minister, Jean Victor Généus, called the resolution a “glimmer of hope” for people who have been suffering too long. “This is more than a simple vote,” he said. “This is, in fact, an expression of solidarity with a population in distress.”

The resolution’s passing signified an increasingly rare moment when the Council was able to act. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, divisions among the body’s five permanent members, each with veto power, have impeded the Council from passing resolutions and taking actions.

Russia and China’s abstentions suggested that neither country endorsed the resolution but they were not going to block it. Diplomats said that negotiations had been tense with the two countries for several weeks, with the text being rewritten multiple times, but that, ultimately, a consensus was reached.

Russia’s U.N. ambassador, Vasily A. Nebenzya, said that although Russia did not have any objections “in principle,” the resolution was “rushed” and “shortsighted.”

The idea for the Security Council to authorize deploying a multinational force to Haiti was proposed by António Guterres, secretary general of the United Nations, in the aftermath of the breakdown of law and order in the country and gangs’ taking over ports and fuel depots, the U.N. spokesman, Stéphane Dujarric, said on Monday.

Unlike a U.N. peacekeeping mission, where the blue-helmeted forces are under the control of the U.N. Department of Peace Operations, the multinational force in Haiti will be overseen by Kenya, although its forces are there with U.N. authorization, which gives the intervention the backing of international law.

It is unusual for the Security Council to authorize multinational or third-country forces to enter a conflict. In 2007, the Council authorized forces from the African Union to enter Somalia to help combat extremist terrorist groups.

As a technical matter, Kenya did not require the U.N. vote but had said it would not proceed without international backing. “We have stepped up to create a new way for preserving global peace and security, answering the repeated calls of a member state facing a multidimensional crisis amid alarming spiraling gang violence,” said Jeffrey DeLaurentis, a former U.S. ambassador who serves as the United States’ senior adviser for Security Council affairs.

The Biden administration has pledged $100 million to the mission and another $100 million from the Defense Department in the form of intelligence, airlifts, communications and medical assistance. About a dozen countries said they would join the mission, including Jamaica, Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda.

Haiti’s prime minister, Ariel Henry, had urged the international community to take action a year ago. But human rights advocates who consider Mr. Henry’s appointment illegitimate criticized the move to authorize an outside force as yet another measure by the international community to prop up a corrupt and unelected government.

“Historically, interventions haven’t made things better, and historically made things worse,” said Alexandra Filippova, a senior staff attorney at the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, a legal advocacy group.

Two leading Haitian American groups, the National Haitian American Elected Officials Network and the Family Action Network Movement, wrote to the Biden administration opposing the Kenya plan for Haiti, saying it will serve to “exacerbate its current political crisis to a catastrophic one.”

Past U.N. missions to Haiti have ended in more misery: A yearslong peace keeping force, authorized in 2004, brought cholera to the country more than a decade ago, killing more than 9,000 Haitians. Human rights groups said many U.N. soldiers fathered babies and abandoned them.

And at home, Kenya’s security forces have been criticized for human rights abuses, as well as corruption, excessive force, extrajudicial killings and arbitrary arrests.

Kenya’s U.N. ambassador, Martin Kimani, told the Council that his country would collaborate closely with Haiti’s allies and the other nations in the Caribbean. “We now invite member states to contribute as active participants, providing personnel, funds, vital equipment and logistical support to the multinational security support mission,” Mr. Kimani said Monday.

U.S. officials said the current proposal, which was co-sponsored by the United States and Ecuador, calls for strong human rights protections, with an oversight mechanism to prevent abuses, especially sexual exploitation.

U.N. diplomats said that negotiations to pass the resolution started in late August, after Kenya came forward to lead the mission. It took weeks of intense talks to get China and Russia on board after they formed a unified front opposing two major parts of the resolution.

A key factor in getting Russia and China on board was Kenya’s leadership of the force and an overall desire at the Council to be more responsive to African voices and demands, diplomats said. Russia and China both have strong economic, military and political ties to Africa. The support for the resolution from Caribbean countries added more momentum.

Russia and China wanted a six-month mandate instead of a year, which American, European and other members of the Council rejected, saying it would set up the enterprise for failure because it would not give the Kenyan forces enough time to turn things around, diplomats said.

The passing of the resolution at the Council is noteworthy given the deepening divisions among the permanent five members — the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia — since the war in Ukraine started. The Council has been unable to act to stop the aggression in Ukraine because of Russia’s veto.

A U.N. diplomat said the timeline for Kenya to dispatch forces to Haiti was still unclear, but it would at least be several months away.

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said that despite the recent struggles of the Security Council to take action, Monday’s vote showed that “we can work together to achieve common goals.”

When it comes to making sure the Kenyan-led force doesn’t engage in abusive behavior, Ms. Thomas-Greenfield added: “The U.S. will engage on these issues very very aggressively. We have learned from the mistakes of the past.”

Diversity: Newsom Taps Emily’s List Leader To Fill Feinstein’s Senate Seat

The New York Times (US) reports that "California Gov. Gavin Newsom said late Sunday that he plans to appoint Emily’s List President Laphonza Butler to fill the Senate seat held by Dianne Feinstein, who died last week at the age of 90.

Feinstein had just over a year left in her term, and had said she would not run again. Three of California’s top Democrats — Reps. Barbara Lee, Katie Porter and Adam B. Schiff — are in a contentious primary contest to fill the seat starting in January 2025, in what is likely to be the most expensive congressional race in the nation next year.

Vice President Harris will swear in Butler on Tuesday at the U.S. Capitol, Harris’s office announced Monday. Butler’s presence will help Democrats retain their narrow control of the Senate.

The interim appointment was first reported Sunday night by Politico. In announcing his decision later Sunday on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, Newsom noted that Butler will make history as the first openly lesbian Black woman to serve in the U.S. Senate. “Laphonza has spent her entire career fighting for women and girls and has been a fierce advocate for working people,” he said.

“From her time as President of Emily’s List to leading the state’s largest labor union, she has always stood up for what is right and has led with her heart and her values,” Newsom said in his statement. “I have no doubt she will carry the baton left by Senator Feinstein, continue to break glass ceilings and fight for all Californians in Washington.”

Butler lives in Maryland, but is a former Los Angeles resident, and a spokesperson said she has been a California homeowner since 2011. By midmorning Monday, Butler had already re-registered to vote in California. Her spokesperson said her team is “confident that Ms. Butler is fully compliant” with the requirements to serve as the Golden State’s senator “and ready to serve the people of California.” She plans to live in Los Angeles after she is sworn in Tuesday.

Butler said in a statement she was humbled by the governor’s trust and honored to accept the nomination to serve as senator “for a state I have long called home.”

“For women and girls, for workers and unions, for struggling parents waiting for our leaders to bring opportunity back to their homes, for all of California, I’m ready to serve,” Butler said. Her appointment will extend until at least November 2024.

Butler has deep ties in the labor movement after decades working in a variety of roles. Before heading Emily’s List, the fundraising powerhouse group that has worked to support Democratic women up and down the ballot, she served as the president of SEIU Local 2015, a union that represented 325,000 nursing home and home-care workers throughout California. She previously served as an SEIU international vice president and headed SEIU United Long Term Care Workers.

She has worked closely with key advisers to Newsom (D). In 2019 and 2020, she was a partner at a firm that was then known as SCRB Strategies — now known as BearStar Strategies — with top Newsom consultants Ace Smith, Sean Clegg and Juan Rodriguez. The firm’s clients at the time included Newsom and Harris before she became vice president. Butler has long been a close ally of Harris, helping her line up support among the labor unions when she ran for California attorney general.

Butler has posted publicly about her pride in becoming the first Black lesbian to serve as president of Emily’s List. When she is sworn in, she will join a small but growing number of members of Congress who identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) became the first openly gay U.S. Senator when she was elected in 2012, and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) is the first openly bisexual member of the Senate.

With the appointment, Newsom, who is widely viewed as a future White House contender, fulfilled the promise he made in 2021 to appoint a Black woman to the chamber.

He made that pledge shortly after appointing Alex Padilla to fill Harris’s Senate seat as she headed to Washington to serve as vice president. Padilla became the first Latino senator to represent California, but Harris’s departure meant there were no longer any Black women in the Senate. Butler will be the only Black female senator.

As Feinstein’s health declined in recent years and questions swirled about whether she would leave before her term ended, Newsom considered some of the highest-ranking Black politicians in California as potential replacements.

Those under consideration included Lee, who has served in the House since 1998 and is the highest-ranking African American woman appointed to House Democratic leadership; Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, a former congresswoman and former speaker of the California State Assembly; and Secretary of State Shirley Weber, whom Newsom appointed to replace Padilla in 2021.

Newsom faced an increasingly complex situation after Feinstein announced in February that she would not seek reelection — accelerating the fierce battle to replace her.

Though Lee initially would have been a natural choice for the appointment, Newsom indicated to allies that he did not want to unfairly tip the balance in an ongoing race among three Democrats. He publicly confirmed that thinking during a recent NBC interview in which he said he would not choose anyone already running for Feinstein’s seat.

Newsom’s comments on NBC were interpreted by Lee’s allies as an assertion that he planned to ask his appointee to serve in a caretaking role. But people familiar with his thinking said he has not set any of those kinds of preconditions in his conversations with potential appointees.

Still, his comment that he would make an “interim appointment” angered some allies on the left who had urged him to appoint a Black woman to the Senate and felt there should not be any implied constraints over that person’s ability to seek a full Senate term. Schiff, who is White, is widely viewed as the front-runner in the race to become the next senator from California because he is far ahead of his rivals in fundraising and endorsements.

The pressure continued to mount for Newsom over the weekend to choose Lee, even though that move would upset many powerful allies of Schiff. They include influential California Democratic donors to Schiff who would be helpful to Newsom’s future White House aspirations, and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the former House speaker who is Schiff’s most prominent backer.

Congressional Black Caucus Chair Steven Horsford, a Democrat from Nevada, sent a letter to Newsom on Sunday urging him to choose Lee for the role, stating that “her unparalleled legislative record, long-standing leadership in the Democratic Party and deep commitment to justice and equality cannot be equaled.”

Powerful liberal leaders, including Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), also weighed in on the appointment by voicing support for Lee after Feinstein’s death was announced early Friday. “Nobody deserves an appointment to the Senate more than @BarbaraLeeForCA,” Jayapal said on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

“She has inspired millions & done the work. Why is it that when a Black woman seeks appointment, she can only be a caretaker? This was not the standard for Newsom’s last appointment,” Jayapal wrote, alluding to his appointment of Padilla to the Senate in 2020, “and it shouldn’t be now.”

Newsom’s choices also narrowed because some potential candidates who are also close allies of Lee indicated they would not accept the appointment if she was passed over. Lee has strong relationships with Bass, San Francisco Mayor London Breed and Los Angeles County Supervisor Holly Mitchell, who all hold powerful positions that they were committed to keeping.

In a statement late Sunday night, Lee said she wished Butler well and looked forward to working closely with her to “deliver for the people of the Golden State.”

Lee added that she is “singularly focused” on winning her campaign for Senate and that “no one should underestimate our unprecedented grassroots campaign, which is growing in momentum every day.”

With Butler’s appointment, Democrats will continue to hold a 51-49 majority in the Senate. Democrats have 48 seats, and three independent members generally vote with Democrats."

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