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Governor appoints Alex Padilla to U.S. Senate
Secretary of State Alex Padilla at a 2019 news conference in the state Capitol. (Photo: Rich Pedroncelli/AP)Alex Padilla, California’s chief elections officer and a former state legislator, was appointed Tuesday by Gov. Gavin Newsom to fill the U.S. Senate seat of Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. The appointment is historic: Padilla, 47, becomes California’s first Latino U.S. senator, representing a state in which about 38 percent of the population is Latino.