Calls Increase For Sen. Dianne Feinstein To Resign Since Her Illness Is Hurting Democrats’ Ability To Confirm Judges
Podcaster and former Obama speechwriter Jon Lovett: Feinstein “is now preventing us from being able to confirm judges … She has to resign and more people should be calling on her to resign.”
That’s Ageist! and Ableist!
I’m referring to increasing calls for California Senator Dianne Feinstein to resign since she is missing so many Senate votes due to illness.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports on Feinstein’s illness and absence:
Sen. Dianne Feinstein has missed 58 Senate votes since getting sick in late February with the painful, but non-life-threatening shingles virus.
Her extended absence, along with that of Pennsylvania Democrat John Fetterman, has made it more difficult for the Senate to confirm President Biden’s nominees and pass legislation. The Senate has a 51-49 party split favoring Democrats, but the absence of multiple senators changes how many votes are needed for a measure to succeed. Vice President Kamala Harris has cast three tie-breaking votes this year in her role as president of the Senate.
Feinstein was hospitalized in early March for treatment and returned to her San Francisco home on March 7. She has not been in Washington, D.C., since the onset of the illness. She has missed 60 votes of the 82 taken in 2023 so far, including two prior to her illness.
CNN reports how this is interfering with Democrats’ ability to confirm judges:
The remarkable pace with which President Joe Biden has sought to remake the federal bench has been put into jeopardy by dual threats: Democratic Senate absences and a Senate rule that gives Republicans the ability to veto district court nominees for courts in their home states….
But even if Democrats wanted to push forward, the absence of California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, away from Senate for several weeks with a case of shingles, stands in the way. Without Feinstein on the panel, the partisan breakdown is 10-10.
No date has been given for the 89-year-old Feinstein to come back to Washington.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin acknowledged to CNN that Feinstein’s absence has slowed down their push to confirm nominees.
“I can’t consider nominees in these circumstances because a tie vote is a losing vote in committee,” Durbin said.
Asked if her absence has longer ramifications on the Democrats’ ability to confirm nominees, the Senate chairman said “yes, of course it does,” pointing to the long process of getting nominees scheduled for votes during precious floor time.
This has led to calls for Feinstein to resign. From Kylie Chung at Jezebel:
Feinstein’s team has been tight-lipped about when, if at all, she’ll return to D.C. Her spokesperson told the Chronicle this week that the 89-year-old “continues to work from home in San Francisco as she recuperates.” Earlier this year, Feinstein announced she won’t seek reelection in 2024 as a handful of Democratic House members vie for her seat. But she intends to serve out the rest of her term, which is set to end in January 2025. That’s close to two years from now, and it’s troubling to consider all the key votes and confirmation processes that could be stalled by Feinstein’s absence—either now or in the future, if she becomes ill again—given Democrats’ razor-thin 51-49 majority.
* * *
Feinstein represents 40 million Americans and serves on four Senate committees. It seems we can both thank her for her service and decades of blazing a path for women in politics and recognize that her remaining in the Senate past her ability to do her job isn’t exactly a feminist victory—not when women and pregnant people stand to be harmed the most by the stalled confirmation of liberal judges.
John Lovett, an influential Democrat media type, demands Feinstein resign:
Crooked Media co-founder Jon Lovett said Tuesday that Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) should resign, noting that her current absence from the upper chamber is preventing the Senate from confirming justices.
“There’s been a lot of reporting about Dianne Feinstein no longer being fit to serve in the Senate representing the biggest state in this country. She is currently out for shingles. That is sad. That is obviously not her fault,” he said on his “Pod Save America” podcast.
Lovett, a former speechwriter for former President Obama, noted that Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has referenced the challenge her absence poses.
“But because she is not in the Judiciary Committee, Durbin has said that it has made it basically impossible to move a lot of these lower court nominees to the Senate for a vote, which means that Dianne Feinstein, who should not be in the Senate, is now preventing us from being able to confirm judges,” Lovett said.
“I think what the people around Dianne Feinstein are doing, allowing, being part of this farce of having a lack of a senator in such an important job is really wrong,” Lovett continued. “And Dianne Feinstein should no longer be in the Senate. She has to resign and more people should be calling on her to resign.”
The New Republic calls it a Dianne Feinstein Problem and calls for her to resign:
The once-whirring judicial appointment machine has suddenly ground to a halt. Last month, Reuters reported that “only two candidates for lifetime positions as judges appeared before [the House Judiciary Committee] for its first judicial nominations hearing in five weeks, even though two of President Joe Biden’s other nominees were pending long enough to appear before it too.” ….
Dianne Feinstein, the 89-year-old senior senator from California, was reportedly hospitalized for shingles last month, forcing Democrats, who now hold a one-seat majority on the Judiciary Committee, to cancel multiple markup sessions. As Bloomberg reported recently, Feinstein’s absence—along with Durbin’s own after he caught Covid-19—meant that the Judiciary Committee “also missed three other opportunities to schedule those meetings in March. Delays have prevented 10 nominees, ripe for markups from getting votes.” ….
This is unacceptable. It is also, like Durbin’s continued inexplicable deference to blue slips, easily resolvable. It is time for Feinstein to resign her seat.
dd
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Comments
Newsome will appoint a new senator. Himself.
Ha ha! He’s the last person who would appoint himself. That would sideline him for his dream job.
Lots of people think Newsom’s name is Newsome.
And yet that spelling is pronounced “Hairdo”.
Well, when an apparatchek ain’t any good in the power-wielding machinery any more, they put them out to pasture.
I wonder if she has any organs worth transplanting?
Yeah, though I don’t recall seeing too much public hand wringing from SR d/prog when many of these octogenarians were running for their current term. Pretty much radio silence or feigned outrage if anyone outside d/prog circles mentioned it, just as with Fetterman.
Just a Hammond console model, but the eight-track drum accessory needs work.
I had to explain Hammonds to a friend a couple months ago. “*That* sound, *that* right there.” “What?” Ended up on Wallflowers’ One Headlight, where you can’t miss it.
Now Imma hafta restock on Jimmy Smith til I get my real collection out of storage.
?Thanks?
I expect Feinstein will voluntarily resign from her position in the Politburo.
“Voluntarily”, I expect.
Lots of old democrat senators. May God give them injuries and illnesses requiring them to stay home for long periods of time.
No judges…..I love it.
I for one support her just as I supported Ruthy Ginsberg. Never stop never stopping. Tired old windbags should always do their best to hurt the Democrats ability to screw up the judiciary. This may be part of God’s special
providence that Otto von Bismarck spoke of.
Fineswine has always been mentally diseased the longer she hangs in the better it is for Americas freedom and liberty by stemming the Commiecrats march towards the goal of Marxism.
Maybe that other lI article about changing the definition of death could be extended a little to include her and Brandon?
…. other Legal Insurrection article. …..
Feinstein’s advanced dementia, by Dem terms, should put her far ahead of Biden for the 2024 nomination. Joe still has the ability to screw things up by going off script. She can’t.
As with BRG, Di-Fi will stay as long as she wants to … barring a sudden meeting with Seth Rich or Ron Brown.
It’s not just Feinstein. Take a look at Leahy. We already know Fetterman is a mess.
If they are not also calling for Fetterman to be replaced then they are also sexist.
Maybe she has already reached room temperature and they don’t want to let the cat out of the bag just yet for whatever reason.
Another reason they want her gone now is so that they can appoint her replacement rather than having to go through an election to do so later.
It’s the House of Representatives where appointments aren’t allowed and a seat remains vacant until a special election is scheduled.
In the Senate, it’s appoint someone within days or weeks of a death or resignation and formally replace via election later. Each state has its own law as to the appointment procedure and how long an appointee remains as the placeholder.
In CA, since DiFi is in the last two years of the six-year term the person Newsom decided to appoint would remain until January 3, 2025, when the person who wins the general election to fill the new term will be sworn in.
But the timing of a resignation/appointment is important. If there is a resignation and appointment prior to the filing deadline for the primary, which is either late this year or early in 2024, the appointee can file to run if they are able to meet the deadline. If the filing deadline has passed, Newsom could appoint one of the primary candidates and that person would then be campaigning as a sitting senator. If the primary has been held, Newsom could appoint one of the two people who have advanced to the general, and that person would also be campaigning as a sitting senator. But in the latter two cases Newsom could simply fill the seat with someone who will definitely just be there until January 3 instead of someone who is actively campaigning.
Recall that when Ted Kennedy and John McCain announced their brain cancer diagnoses, they remained in office until they died even though they rarely showed up in the Senate to vote, and they only did when it was absolutely necessary. Their staffs continued doing as much as they could, including submitting bills and amendments (autopen FTW), but like with Feinstein right now casting votes in committee and on the Senate floor was where their absences were felt most.
“You must die for the good of the hive.”
Di-Fi and Fetterman should be allowed to take their time in recovering. No vote is better than voting in their case.
I never call for elected officials to resign. I opposed the resignations of Democrats Stuart Smalley, Carlos Danger, and that chick who had sexual threesome trysts with her staffer. While I supported Clinton’s impeachment at the time, now that I know more of the history about why the impeachment clause was inserted in the Constitution, I think he was wrongly impeached. So was Trump.
You either believe and support “our democracy” or you don’t. And if you believe in “democracy”, then provided the elections are free and fair, you must respect the will of the voters who put these people in positions of power. The media, party leaders and other influencers can not be allowed to overrule the will of the people and force a resignation. Voters re-elected Feinstein with full knowledge of her age and that with advanced age she may face crippling health issues related to her advanced age. They made that choice. Feinstein must refuse to resign for the sake of democracy.
Only the voters should have the power to fire her in the next election.
Likewise, these elected officials have no right to die on the job. Their corpses must be put into the seats and left there.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein has missed 58 Senate votes since getting sick in late February with the painful, but non-life-threatening shingles virus.
But . . . but . . . but . . . there’s a VACCINE you can receive to prevent the shingles. That’s what I’ve been told. So why didn’t Feinstein get that vaccine. Especially since they push it on all people of a certain age.
Silly woman. She ended up “killing grandma” and she was grandma.
Sounds like healthism.
We should all be hoping Feinstein and Fetterman serve out their terms and retain an iron resolve not to resign.
She’s milked this gig long enough.
I never thought that I would be saying this, but I think Feinstein is getting BETTER as she ages. She is finally hitting her stride. I think she may be Presidential material!
Feinstein 2024!!
Oh, I want to hear THAT alkaloid-fueled debate.
It’ll be like a Firesign Theatre album, only slower.
If only they had something more than the slimmist of party “majorities”. Something like answeeping endorsement, giving a large majority with popular support.
What’s that called, again? Oh, right. If only they had an actual mandate, DiFi’s one vote wouldn’t matter so much.
I remember another lady who refused to resign when she should have. Didn’t work out well for Ruth but it sure did for SCOTUS.