History made: State Senate’s new leader is LGBT, female
SACRAMENTO — Sen. Toni Atkins was sworn in Wednesday as head of the California Senate, making the San Diego Democrat the first woman and first openly LGBT person to lead the upper house of the state Legislature.
Immediately after assuming her post, Atkins noted the ceiling-breaking achievements she had just ushered in, saying, “It’s about time.”
“I will never stop striving to earn the trust you’ve placed in me,” Atkins said. “Nor will I ever take for granted the gravity of this gavel.”
Atkins replaces termed-out Sen. Kevin de León, D-Los Angeles, who is challenging fellow Democrat U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein in next year’s election.
Atkins, whose term ends in 2020, served as
speaker in the Assembly before moving to the Senate in 2016. She is the 48th president pro tem of the Senate and first person in 146 years to have led both the Senate and Assembly. She was elected unanimously to lead the Senate.
The Legislative Women’s Caucus said Atkins’ ascent is a historic moment paved by the 154 women who have held office in the Legislature. By comparison, the women’s caucus said, nearly 4,500 men have held office in the Senate and Assembly.
“It has been a long road since the first brave women held legislative office — 100 years ago this year,” said the caucus’ interim chair, Assemblywoman Susan Talamantes Eggman, DStockton, and Vice Chair Sen. Connie Leyva, DChino (San Bernardino County). “We cannot think of a tribute more fitting to those pioneers than today’s swearingin.”
The new leader was sworn in by California Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani G. CantilSakauye.
Atkins, 55, is a lesbian who grew up in rural Virginia, where her father was a coal miner and her mother a seamstress. She said her story and that of de León, the son of a single mother who worked as a housekeeper, show California is a place of promise. De León was the first Latino leader of the Senate in more than a century.
Atkins said California is a place where “people can dream big dreams and make them real. Where people can be whoever they want to be.”