| Hi Rulers! We made it to the last Women Rule edition of 2023. We’ll be off next week for the holidays, but back in your inbox on Jan. 5. See you in the New Year! Laphonza Butler knows that getting policy through the Senate in the ten months before she loses her seat will be a struggle. Luckily, that’s not how she’s measuring her success in the Senate. “My contribution, I hope, is gonna be one that doesn’t necessarily rely on the passing of legislation,” Butler (D-Calif.) said during a recent Women Rule event. “But hopefully it’s a time served to broaden and engage the conversation — a conversation about the state of young people in our country.” Butler joined POLITICO’s Eleanor Mueller on stage for a wide ranging interview on Dec. 12, where she said that her focus in Congress will be engaging young people in politics and making sure that their views — which, she says, are often overlooked — are finally taken into consideration. It’s a potent talking point for her constituency, as California tied with Oklahoma for 8th youngest state in the U.S., with a median age of only 36.7. Butler herself is only 44 – which makes her one of the youngest women to ever serve in the Senate. She’s also the mother of an 8-year-old daughter, whom she shares with her wife, Neneki Lee. She has a theory about why young people are becoming increasingly disenchanted with U.S. politics: they haven’t witnessed the positive role that government can play in changing American lives for the better. “They’re beyond the generations that can see the impact of the Voting Rights Act, that can see the impact of the Affordable Care Act — what they have seen is a generational pandemic,” Butler said. “They’ve seen the books which they can learn from restricted.” (The event was also briefly derailed by protesters calling for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war, an issue that's especially potent with young people, and to which Butler responded "It’s not as if any of us cannot acknowledge that any loss of life is too much.") Women Rule followed up with her office after the event to find out how she plans to bring young voices into her work on the Hill. Audrey Lopez, her communications director, said that she’ll be building a coalition of young people from California “through intentional partnerships, digital engagements and youth roundtables” who will serve as a “temperature check” for the Senator. In addition to Butler’s plans to engage the younger generations, she also opened up about more thorny topics, like the criticism she has received for her past lucrative jobs in the private sector. After her work for the powerful California Service Employees International Union, Butler spent time as a political and corporate consultant. She worked with companies like Uber and Lyft and enjoyed a 1M-plus payout from Airbnb — and received plenty of flak for it. She chalked that criticism up to a double standard: “If I were a man, that would be ‘look at how well-rounded [he] is.’” Butler, who was appointed by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom to replace the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, notably declined to endorse any of the candidates who are running to replace her in 2024 — even as the race for her seat is heating up. Butler has said that she would not run for her seat next year. In addition to Butler’s interview, Heidi Sommer, vice president of client partnerships at POLITICO, and Elizabeth Ralph, editor of POLITICO Magazine and a managing editor at POLITICO, also interviewed two panels of women in the business world. Here are the main takeaways from those conversations. PANEL 1: EXECUTIVES Women entrepreneurs have less access to capital A July analysis from the Boston Consulting Group found that, if women and men participated equally as entrepreneurs, global GDP could rise by approximately 3 percent to 6 percent. Dori Kreiger, the executive director of CTIA Wireless Foundation, said her organization takes that fact into consideration by prioritizing women for their Catalyst grants program, which provides financial backing to social entrepreneurs who are “using the power of 5G.” “We are very deliberate in how we prioritize women founders,” Kreiger said. Virtual Reality can be used for education Recipient of a Catalyst grant Ursula Spencer is the CEO of Dope Nerds, a company which creates VR headsets with preloaded educational experiences. She said that virtual reality is key for students who want to explore different career options. For example, one experience creates a virtual simulation of a dentist's office, where students can perform dental procedures on a virtual patient. “We’re preparing them for a highly technological future workplace,” Spencer said. PANEL 2: MEMBER EXCHANGE Government can move fast (sometimes) Vanessa Chan worked in the private sector before taking a role as chief commercialization officer at the Energy Department’s Office of Technology Transitions. There, it’s her job to make sure that the clean energy incentives introduced by the Biden administration actually get used by private-sector energy companies. She originally was reluctant to take the job, because, she said, she’s “entrepreneurial” and “moves very fast” — something she didn’t expect to be able to do in government. But, she said, to her surprise, working in government is “the most entrepreneurial I’ve ever been.” She said the administration is moving fast to activate the private sector and help it transition to cleaner energy alternatives. New areas of the private sector are entering the climate change conversation Michelle Patron, senior director of sustainability policy for Microsoft, attended COP28. She said that while she was there, she noticed that representatives from a wider range of industries than usual were in attendance – which she called “inspiring.” But she also noted that there’s still a long way to go, as the final agreement fell short of what many activists were hoping for. “There’s a really big gap between where we are, and where we need to be.”
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