Rep. Barbara Lee joins race for US Senate seat from California

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Rep. Barbara Lee on Tuesday officially launched her campaign for the Senate seat held by outgoing Dianne Feinstein, joining two Democratic House colleagues in a race in the country’s most populous state.

In a video posted to Twitter, Lee went over the list of personal and professional battles she has taken on in her life, including fighting to be the first black cheerleader in her school, standing up for the protection of domestic violence survivors, and being the sole member of Congress. vote against allowing the use of military force after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

“Today, I am proud to announce my nomination for the US Senate. I have never refused to do what is right. And I never will,” Lee said in the video. “California people deserve a strong, progressive leader who makes real change.”

Lee, the former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, filed federal paperwork to campaign last week shortly after Feinstein, 89, announced she would step down when her term expires next year. Feinstein, the oldest member of Congress, has held the seat since 1992.

US House Democratic Representatives Kathy Porter, who is known for using the whiteboard during congressional hearings, and Adam Schiff, the lead prosecutor in the first impeachment trial of then-President Donald Trump, have announced their Senate campaigns in last month.

The three Democratic candidates occupy most of the same political territory, so the race may be shaped by other factors that distinguish them.

Lee’s neighborhood in the San Francisco Bay Area is one of the most liberal in the country and includes Berkeley and Oakland. Porter represents a politically divided area in Orange County, southeast of Los Angeles, that was once a conservative stronghold. Schiff’s neighborhood stretches north of Los Angeles and includes Hollywood and Burbank, where he lives.

Lee is the highest-ranking black woman appointed as a Democratic leader in the House of Representatives and is co-chair of the Policy and Steering Committee. Schiff and Porter are white. Lee, 76, is the oldest in the group. Porter is 49 and Schiff is 62.

Paying tribute to her age, Lee said she was the same fighter she always was.

“For those who say my time is up, well, when does making changes go out of style?” she said in the video. “I do not give up. I do not give up”.

There are no black women in the Senate, and there have only been two in the history of the House: Vice President Kamala Harris, who was California’s first black senator, and Carol Moseley Brown of Illinois, who served one term.

None of the candidates had previously run for statehood. They are faced with the task of becoming more widely known, although each of them has a political reputation.

Lee and Porter were leaders of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Schiff describes himself as a progressive champion but was once a member of the House of Representatives’ centrist Blue Dog Coalition.

Lee has long been an outspoken advocate for abortion rights. In 2021, she was one of several members of Congress who gave personal testimony about their own abortions during a congressional hearing.

She became pregnant at age 16 in the mid-1960s. At the time, abortion was illegal in California, so a family friend helped send her to a back alley clinic in Mexico, she said at the time.

She didn’t have any side effects from the procedure, but she said many other women weren’t so lucky at the time.

Democrats are expected to dominate the competition in a liberal state. The Republicans have not won a race in the state of California since 2006, and in the last two U.S. Senate elections, only Democrats have run on the November ballot.

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