 | | Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, the head of California’s Legislative Black Caucus. Rich Pedroncelli/Associated Press |
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This week, the Electoral College voted, officially making Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Kamala Harris the next president and vice president of the United States. |
If you were watching the news, you might have caught California’s electors bursting into applause in the green-carpeted Assembly as they cast the 55 votes that put the Biden-Harris ticket over the 270-vote threshold. Or you may have noticed the legislator dressed in red who was heading the proceedings. |
That was Shirley Weber, a retired San Diego State University professor who is now a Democratic assemblywoman and the head of California’s Legislative Black Caucus. |
Shawn Hubler caught up with her on Tuesday and asked her about the experience. Her answer, lightly edited here, was a surprise: |
It’s not every day that the Electoral College gets gavel-to-gavel TV coverage. Watching you after the events of the past year, just as a Californian, I wondered what must be going through your mind. |
It was an amazing experience. I’ve been on the Electoral College once before, and it doesn’t seem like a lot. But once you’re in that room, you realize what we were doing. And how important it was. I continue to be amazed at being able to participate in the process at this level. |
I come from a father and grandfather who were sharecroppers in Arkansas, and my father never got a chance to vote until he was in his mid to late 30s because he lived in Arkansas. And my grandfather never got to vote at all because he died before the Voting Rights Act of 1965. |
Wow. I had no idea. So the back story for you was much deeper than just California and its role in the Trump resistance. |
My dad could barely read. He was never allowed to go to school very much in Arkansas, because they were sharecroppers and he was a male, so he had to work. |
Well, they were trying to cheat him out of his years of labor, and one day he fought back. And they were going to make an example of him — it was known in the community they were going to kill him. My mother’s mother had come to California years before, so he came here, fleeing for his life. |
They had put him in the back of a wagon, in the middle of the night like in a movie, and took him to Texarkana and he got on the train and came to my mother’s mother in California. |
When the men came to our house that night, my dad was gone. We remained in Arkansas for three months, until my dad earned enough money to bring his wife and six children by train to California. Later two more were born in California. |
Where in Arkansas was this? |
We lived in Hope, Ark. Bill Clinton’s grandfather lived right down the road from my grandparents. They all knew his grandfather and knew him. |
And your family settled in Los Angeles then? |
Yes. We lived in the projects. Eventually my father on a fluke was able to buy a house at 45th and Broadway. His company had changed owners and when they changed the retirement system, they had to pay what was in it to the employees, so he got $2,000 and put it down on a house. |
I was educated in South Central schools. I graduated from Manual Arts High School. All of us graduated from there but for one brother, who graduated from Jefferson High. |
Our living room was a voting place in Los Angeles. My mother worked the polls when they moved here. And my dad was equally involved — setting up the house, moving all the furniture. Every election, whether it was a runoff or a primary or a general election, for many, many years. We knew as kids how important it was to vote, and how significant it was that my dad and mom were denied the right to vote. |
So Monday’s vote must have been incredibly emotional for you, then. |
When I think about that, when you put it into context for a kid who grew up in the projects of Los Angeles, you realize how truly blessed you are to be there. And what a significant moment it was, not just for me but also for my brothers and sisters, who were crying, watching it on television. To be not just one of the electors, but the chair. |
I heard from students all over the nation. I was a professor for 40 years and they know all my passions — and they know my voice. Some of them said they walked into the room and thought I was in their home and they turned around and there I was. |
An update on the pandemic |
 | | Nurses and clinicians prepared a Covid-19 patient for RotoProne therapy in the intensive care unit at Sharp Grossmont Hospital on Monday in La Mesa.Mario Tama/Getty Images |
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Of course, one didn’t cause the other. But it’s a usefully shocking comparison nonetheless, as California continues to grapple with Covid-19 caseloads that — unless you work in a hospital — are hard to fathom. |
Here’s what else to know today |
- A fast-moving storm is likely to pass through the Bay Area, bringing some rain to the region, before heading for the Sierra. [The Mercury News]
- Investors can now trade on and profit from California’s water. What could go wrong? [The San Francisco Chronicle]
- Jim Cooper, a state assemblyman, is considering a run for Sacramento County sheriff. But his past is plagued with allegations of harassment and other scandal. [The Appeal]
- Take a visual tour of Downey, and read about how it became “the Mexican Beverly Hills.” [The New York Times]
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Jill Cowan grew up in Orange County, graduated from U.C. Berkeley and has reported all over the state, including the Bay Area, Bakersfield and Los Angeles — but she always wants to see more. Follow along here or on Twitter. |
California Today is edited by Julie Bloom, who grew up in Los Angeles and graduated from U.C. Berkeley. |
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