Karen Ruth Bass (/ˈbæs/; born October 3, 1953) is an American politician serving as the U.S. Representative for California's 37th congressional district since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, she was first elected to Congress for the state's 33rd congressional district in 2010, which covered Culver City and parts of South Los Angeles until redistricting at the end of her first term.
On November 28, 2018, Bass was elected to chair of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) during the 116th Congress.[7][8][9] She also serves as Chair of the United States House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organizations and United States House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security.
Prior to being elected to Congress, Bass represented the 47th district in the California State Assembly (2004–2010). In 2008, she was elected to serve as the 67th Speaker of the California State Assembly, becoming the first African American woman in United States history to serve as a Speaker of a state legislative body.[10][11] For her leadership during the worst recession California had faced since the Great Depression, she, along with three other legislative leaders whom she worked alongside, was awarded the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award in 2010.[12]
Why should you care? The question pivots upon who else may care. The Atlantic, July 13, 2020 - by: Edward-Isaac Dovere - Why Joe Biden Has His Eye on Karen Bass - The California representative’s low-key manner and progressive credentials could strengthen Biden’s campaign when he needs it most.:
The first time Representative Karen Bass heard Joe Biden talk about the car crash that killed his wife and infant daughter, she dropped into her chair, overwhelmed.
It was 2008, and Bass was watching the Democratic National Convention video introducing Biden as the party’s vice-presidential nominee. Less than two years earlier, Bass’s daughter and son-in-law had died in a car crash on the 405. Bass, then in her 50s, had thrown herself into her job as the speaker of the California assembly and hoped to get past the pain. But there was Biden, 36 years after the tragedy that shattered his family, still talking about the magnitude of his loss. “I had this moment,” Bass told me, “where I had to come to grips with the fact that losing my daughter and son-in-law was always going to be a part of the narrative of who I am.”
Four years later, as Biden and Barack Obama were being reelected, Bass won a seat in the House, representing parts of Los Angeles. But she didn’t tell Biden what he’d meant to her until this March, when she introduced him at a Super Tuesday chicken-and-waffles event. “We both just shared that you learn how to get up in the morning,” she told me. “You learn how to live, but your life is fundamentally changed, dramatically changed.”
Now, much to Bass’s—and pretty much everyone else’s—surprise, Biden’s team is taking her seriously as a potential vice-presidential running mate. One theory is that she’s being vetted to help Biden win favor with the Congressional Black Caucus, which she chairs. Another is that Biden is trying to use the process to elevate as many black women as he can. Yet another is that he’s looking to distract people from speculating about some of the more likely choices. But inside the Biden campaign is another consideration: Over the next month, he’s effectively going to decide whether there will be a competitive Democratic primary in 2024 (or maybe 2028, if he wins and tries to serve until he’s 86 years old). He’s the leader of the party now. Will he decide its future by anointing a successor, or pick someone, like Bass, who’s less likely to run for president?
Biden has wanted to be president for almost 40 years. Now that the White House finally seems within reach, he does not want to be outshone, according to people who know him. He wants to win, but he wants the win to be about him, not his running mate.
[... Bass is 66 years old.] When Barack Obama picked Biden as his running mate in 2008, Biden was also 66. Obama told Biden to think of the job like “the capstone of your career,” and the assumption that Biden wouldn’t be angling to run for president himself was part of the rationale for putting him on the ticket.
Bass came up as a community organizer in Los Angeles and worked as a physician assistant in emergency rooms during the AIDS crisis. She was at the infamous intersection of Florence and Normandie as the sun set in 1992 during the LA riots, and almost got hit by bricks. For the past month, she’s been shepherding a policing-reform bill through the House without losing a single progressive or moderate vote.
She “was not high on the list that the team had initially proposed,” a donor who’s spoken with Biden about the deliberations told me. But she seems to have moved up as the vetting committee has looked at her record and considered her upsides against the little obvious baggage she’d have. In this case, being largely unknown nationally means that she wouldn’t start out as polarizing. “He wants what he did for Obama,” the donor told me. “He sees that as what that job is: You speak truth to power; you step out there on the edge when it’s an existential issue. He sees her and her record as proven and time-tested—though she’s not known among large voter blocs, and not lifted up with a strong media presence.”
[...] At the end of May, Bass flew to Houston to attend George Floyd’s funeral. She looked at the picture of him with the dates of his life underneath, and realized that the year Floyd was born, 1973, was when she’d first become active in her L.A. neighborhood, pushing for police reform. Now Floyd was dead, and she was in charge of a bill he inspired. She felt humbled. “And then, of course, it saddens you in the sense that, 47 years later, people discover, ‘Gee, there’s a problem.’”
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