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Dianne Feinstein dies at 90
(abc7news.com)
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this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2023
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Imagine if she had mentored and sponsored a younger replacement in 2000 and then retired in 2010. Where would we be?
Now that Skeletor has died with no one obvious to replace her, the Judiciary Committee will probably grind to a halt when it comes to confirming judges.
She was a public servant that worked for a long time on your behalf.
California's governor will name a replacement for the remainder of her term.
Democrats no longer have a clear majority in the Senate. This has all sorts of complications. I believe it will still take 60 votes to replace her in Judiciary which Republicans won't give them. Probably the main reason she stuck around to begin with. Biden has to be careful with his nominees if he can get through any at all. Gawd help us if a SCOTUS member dies. The call for Menendez to step down will quiet a bit.
She worked a long time and was obviously better than the GOP, but staying on for so long was at best a lack of vision and at worse an egotistical decision that will bite us in the ass. All these geriatric ass politicians who don't mentor, grow the bench with the next generation, and retire when it is time to are leading us to the situation. This is going to end up being RBG all over again.
This is peanuts compared to RBG. Feinstein refusing to retire will lead to some inconvenience in the senate and the judiciary committee. RBG refusing to retire fucked the Supreme Court for decades to come.
Blame the Senate Committe Seniority system.
Seniority in the United States Senate is based on the length of time a senator serves on a committee. The majority party member with the most seniority on a committee usually serves as the chair.
That is the only reason to keep sending these people back as old as they are. You send someone new, they have zero power.
No. The second-most senior one from the same party would become the most senior and take over. There's no good reason for her staying on 15+ years too long.
That would be from a different state and then that state would lose the power of having a senior committee member.
There is a reason Senator Robert Byrd was the longest-serving U.S. Senator. Serving three different tenures as chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Appropriations enabled Byrd to steer a great deal of federal money toward projects in West Virginia.
We're talking about California here. If any state isn't starved of power and dependant on federal money, it's California.
Feinstein was on the following committees. You don't think she pushed California's interests in every one.
Committee on Appropriation
Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies
Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies
Subcommittee on Defense
Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development (Chairman)
Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies
Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies
Committee on Rules and Administration
Committee on the Judiciary
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice and Counterterrorism
Subcommittee on Federal Courts, Oversight, Agency Action, and Federal Rights
Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law
Subcommittee on the Constitution (Chairman)
Select Committee on Intelligence
Thats WAY too many committees for any one politician, let alone one clearly circling the drain!
To answer your question though, no she wasn't. She was literally unable to do the job and they'd known for years.
She was a piece of shit freedom hater, one of the worst Senators ever. Good riddance to that old bag.
I honestly don't know a lot about her so I don't know what you're referring to. I assume gun rights?
That plus carte blanche approval of all forms of warrantless mass surveillance, violations of our 4th Amendment rights, being a pro-corporate oligarchy puppet etc
I mean this isn’t wrong. She was one of the votes against the proposal of members of congress being banned from owning stocks.
No wonder, she consistently outperformed the best traders on wall street. I wonder how she managed that?
That last paragraph is all sorts of reasons why she should have retired 15 years ago (at 75!) When voters would have easily voted in her (possibly even hand picked!) protege.
We're now left a mess because someone with an ego didn't retire when they could have. Wait this is starting to sound familiar. Thankfully the consequences aren't likely to be as dire this time.
15 years would mean that you would miss her vote for Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, plus Obamacare. We can play what if all day long.
Yeah because California would elect a Republican senator in 2008 🙄
Can we play what if all day long? Exactly what do you think a Californian congressperson was going to do when presented with Obamas candidates and health care? I’m certain enough to bet my car they would have approved it, especially if they would have been a tiebreaker.
But there is a difference between a senior and junior senator.
CA has only elected democratic (vaguely to the left of the median Democrat, if fairly rank-and-file) senators since 1992. As long as she didn't leave it to chance and die during her term (...) while she coincided with the honestly fairly moderate-but-still-republican Gov Schwarzenegger, she could have had a hand in picking her replacement.
As others (including myself) have noted, any Democrat-led SCOTUS nomination or major piece of Dem legislation would have passed more-or-less the same. I'd be curious if there was some analysis of where a particular Dem Senator from CA was a "swing vote". Meanwhile now we're in a vacancy and her missing vote definitely matters (again, thankfully likely with less impact than RBG's).
Gotta love a system where nonagenarians have to be dragged half-aware around DC and openly corrupt politicians need to stay in office because the other side is so fucking bad.
This is clearly the best system of government ever made.
Republicans were objecting to a temporary replacement, but if they refuse to give someone a committee seat due to vacancy, Democrats will just change the rule to simple majority. Feinstein could have ended this stalemate at any time by retiring, but the ghouls around her didn't want to surrender their power.
That's really not true. They can't change rules until the next congress.
The Senate can change their rules at any time, they just need 60 votes or to invoke the "nuclear option" and pass with 50. Democrats have been reluctant to do so because it makes changing rules easier in the future and for some reason they don't think the party with the majority should be able to pass things with just a majority.
Session rules can only be changed at rehearsal start of a new congress.
You really believe that in the last two decades, she had not mentored or influenced a new generation of politicians and that none of her colleagues anticipated a scenario in which she dies or retires without a plan?
Considering she was 90 and didn't retire before she literally died that does seem to be the case. She even had a health scare and leave from the Senate earlier in the year but she was still there.
Neoliberalism doesn't work that way. The incentives of the system are all about preserving the symbiotic relationship donors and those in government who represent donors.
But let's pretend some protege under Feinstein got the donors to support them to replace her. That would instantly sever their relationship with Feinstein and all her senate buds. Senators could and would get new campaign donors if they feel they can't trust their current donors.
Donors don't care about society, they just want more money to buy off more senators and judges so they can get more money and so on.
She only inspired the younger generation by pissing them off to their faces.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/feb/22/dianne-feinstein-sunrise-movement-green-new-deal
https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/22/politics/feinstein-video-sunrise-movement-kids/index.html