There is no way a democrat doesn’t end up in that seat. The rest is just theater.
I could see Pelosi stepping down too soon now, as her daughter is now free to run in her place. (She was Feinstein’s keeper)
Feinstein’s legacy to me was initially positive , but much like GInsberg she held on too long.
Newsom will try to pick a caretaker , who is also a Black woman, as he made a promise to replace Feinstein with a Black woman, but dies not want to pick the winner in the Senate race , so it won’t be Barbara Lee.
It’s sort of crazy how long Diane Feinstein was in public office. Watch documentaries about Jonestown or Harvey Milk and Mayor Moscone getting murdered and she’s in the picture.
RIP , nothing worse than working your entire life and never getting the opportunity to retire.
I’m 49% serious, but, what about Vice President Kamala Harris? She’s already President of the Senate, a former Senator, and Black, and Californian. Is there anything in the rulebook that prevents someone from having a job in two branches of the government simultaneously?
Edit: I found an article in the Jurist (that website by and for law school kids) that argues, nah, but it’s more complicated than you might think, and so… maybe?
The hypothetical would make for an interesting episode of law professor Elizabeth Joh’s podcast What Roman Mars Can Learn About Con Law.
Yes, It’s straight up prohibited in the Constitution.
Also The VP breaks ties in the Senate, so she’d have two votes effectively.
Who says she’d have to keep her old job? Maybe this solves two problems at once!
Feinstein’s “legacy”. A pseudo-liberal, Reagan-era Democrat. Never a big fan. Only reason I mourn her passing is that it subtracts from the number of non-traitor senators currently holding office.
I recall her as being weirdly gung ho about the Patriot Act, the NSA, and incarcerating weed smokers, but in fairness, I might be mixing her up with one of several other mouldering Democratic senators who got off on annihilating privacy and random Iraqis rather than their Saudi besties back in the day. She reliably did the necessary in most votes though, which is better than you can say for true vermin like every Republican 1960 forward, though.
I find it perfectly understandable why she didn’t let it go, you need a certain sort of personality to think you can go into politics and change the world, and it’s not the kind that is usually coupled with the sense that “I’m too old, time to step away and let a new generation do their thing”.
So, much like the star player that’s no longer as good as they were, it’s up for other people to make that call. And I guess they never did.
Yeah, I find it hard not to grant that Feinstein was a liberal.
She was on the Senate Intelligence Committee since 2001 and chaired it at times. She was okay with the government spying on Americans, but was upset and surprised when the CIA was caught spying on the members of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
By 20th century standards, yes.
By 21st century standards she was one of the most right-wing Dems. If anything her senility probably helped, as she would have likely been some no votes if she wasn’t told how to vote.
I think you should do the work of demonstrating this using her actual voting record. You might even change my mind!
Her replacement will be a Democrat, that is a sure thing. It just would have been nice if ailing ancient liberals in positions of power understood that their dying could be bad for the nation. Resign.
I have never thought of her as being right wing, however she was probably one of the more conservative.
Well, she was a liberal, not a progressive.
Edit:
For anyone who is interested, you can see her voting record here:
It’s hard to make an argument that she was not a reliable vote for the left on every measure that came before her. Even the stuff you might not like — e.g. renewing the FISA surveillance law — she basically voted with 80% of the Senate.
To me she ruined her legacy by being so selfish and not stepping down. I should be sad, but instead I’m angry at what she did these last few years.
Given Republican promises to block the appointment of a replacement if she stepped down I don’t think it was that selfish to stay in the Senate. This isn’t a RBG situation where holding on too long flipped the seat.