SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Washington Insider Magazine) – A woman has passed a measure into state law for the first time in California’s 171-year history.
California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, usually signs laws, but he departed the state on Wednesday night for a family trip in South and Central America. Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis is required by state law to serve as governor until he returns.
On Thursday morning, the Assembly passed a legislation extending a measure that prevents some tenants from getting evicted until the end of June. The legislation had to be passed into law on Thursday since the previous law was slated to expire on Friday, and thousands of renters were at risk of being evicted.
According to NBC NEWS, it was a watershed event for the country’s most populated state, which has a progressive reputation but also has never really elected a woman governor.
Other statewide positions in California have been filled by women.
Two Democratic women were elected to the United States Senate in 1992. Dianne Feinstein continues to serve, while Barbara Boxer departed in 2017 and was succeeded by Kamala Harris, a former state attorney general who is currently Vice President.
When Harris alongside House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sat behind President Joe Biden at his recent State of the Union speech, California’s female dominance was on show. Pelosi has been a member of Congress since 1987, representing San Francisco.
California’s first female lieutenant governor is Kounalakis, a former president of a real estate development business who acted as envoy to Hungary under President Barack Obama. In 2018, she was elected to succeed Newsom.
The state’s second-in-command has little authority. She also serves as a University of California regent and casts tie-breaking votes in the state Senate. Those who hold the position, like Newsom, sometimes utilise it to increase brand recognition for prospective statewide races.
According to Jean Sinzdak, assistant director of Rutgers University’s Center for American Women in Politics, women do not run for governor at the same pace as they do for other offices. She claims that women make up around a quarter of all gubernatorial candidates in the United States. It’s one of the reasons there have only been 45 female governors in US history.
California is among 19 states where no woman has ever been elected governor. This is unlikely to alter this year, since Newsom is widely expected to win re-election. However, this might change in 2026, when Newsom will be unable to run again due to term limitations.
California currently has 4 women in statewide office and 38 women in the legislature, both of which are all-time highs. Betty Yee, Treasurer Fiona Ma, state Senate President Pro Tempore Toni Atkins, and State secretary Shirley Weber, in addition to Kounalakis, might all run for governor in 2026.
Any woman with a broader platform, including Kounalakis, should consider running for governor, she added. She was just not ready to commit to running for office yet because the election was over four and a half years away.
Newsom is set to return to California on April 12th.
