SAN JOSE, Calif. — East Bay Rep. Barbara Lee kicked off her U.S. Senate campaign Saturday before a few hundred supporters filling the risers and basketball hardwood at Laney College’s gymnasium in her hometown of Oakland — formally launching her bid for the seat Sen. Dianne Feinstein has held for three decades.
In her first speech of the campaign, Lee touted her career as the highest-ranking Black woman appointed to House Democratic leadership and her long progressive track record on issues from housing to health care.
“I will fight to back California in the United States Senate every single day because I believe that California’s next chapter can be one in which dignity, freedom and justice belongs to all of us,” she said to a cheering crowd holding green and gold campaign signs emblazoned with the slogan “Barbara Lee speaks for me.”
