Vice President-elect Kamala Harris has made plans to resign her Senate seat on Monday, Jan. 18, 2021. This Wednesday Harris and President-elect Joe Biden are inaugurated. To fill the vacancy in the Senate, Gov. Gavin Newsom has appointed fellow Democrat Alex Padilla, now serving as California’s secretary of state.
Padilla will serve the last two years of Harris term. He will become the first Latino senator for the state of California. Newsom made this decision back in December.
She will not make a farewell speech to the senate but she did make a statement Sunday in a broadcast interview reflecting on the Capitol siege saying:
That siege was seismic. It was an inflection moment. You know, sometimes we think an inflection moment is the bringing of something that is positive. No. It was in many ways a reckoning. It was an exposure of the vulnerability of our democracy.
Harris going out and Padilla coming in is part of the Democrats’ looming Senate majority. Georgia’s newly elected senators Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock need to be certified winners and sworn in for that majority to be complete.
Vice President-elect Harris departed from the senate leave yet still a vacancy of a Black woman on the chamber roster. She was only the second Black female senator following Illinois senator Carol Mosely Braun.
On the list of successors to the vice president-elect, Newsom passed over at least two prominent Black women, U.S. Reps. Karen Bass and Barbara Lee. As a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee Harris was a fierce interrogator of judicial nominees.
Harris and her husband Doug Emhoff have had conversations and debates over how he should be addressed when she takes office. They participated in a joint interview with “CBS Sunday Morning,” and she jest that some of her husband’s friends suggested that he be called “the first dude.” Other suggested names could not be shared on national television.
Written by Omari Jahi
Sources:
Washington Post: Vice President-elect Harris to resign her Senate seat Monday, Bill Barrow
Local10: Vice President-elect Harris to resign her Senate seat Monday,
Associated Press: Vice President-elect Harris to resign her Senate seat Monday, BILL BARROW
Featured Image by Gage Skidmore Courtesy of Wikimedia – Creative Commons License
Inset Image by Terrance Courtesy of Wikimedia – Creative Common License
