The domino effect continues from Senator Dianne Feinstein’s
planned retirement and the rush of prominent Democrats who want to succeed
her. Oakland Representative Barbara Lee is among those giving up their
seat in the House to run for Senator and now we have the first major candidate
who wants to take Lee’s place in Congress. We’ve been speculating for weeks about who might run to represent Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda, San Leandro and the rest of the East Bay’s 12th Congressional District. Now, most of the names on our short list are coalescing around one candidate and that is Lateefah Simon, member of the BART Board of Directors, of which she is the former president. She is also the former
president of the Akonadi Foundation in Oakland, she’s on the Cal State University
Board of Trustees, she was the executive director of the Lawyers Committee for
Civil Rights, she was the youngest woman ever to win a MacArthur Foundation
“genius” fellowship, and she has degrees from both Mills College and USF.
And today she is our guest on the State of California, joining Brett Burkart, Megan Goldsby, and Doug Sovern.