Rep. Barbara Lee stood to benefit from that outcome more than Reps. Adam Schiff or Katie Porter. Newsom angered some Black voters by replacing the newly elevated Vice President Kamala Harris with Sen. Alex Padilla, the state’s first Latino senator — a choice that left the Senate without any Black women. The governor later committed to appointing a Black woman if he got another Senate pick. Lee was vetted to replace Harris and was widely seen as the logical choice if Feinstein stepped down.
Feinstein had been facing increasing calls to return or resign, including from some Democratic colleagues, as her prolonged absence prevented the Senate Judiciary Committee from advancing judicial nominations and threatened further chaos as a nearly-tied Senate faces a looming debt fight.
But now it looks more likely that she stays through the end of her term, preserving the basic dynamics of the Senate race to date. Lee, Porter, and Schiff have all rolled out star endorsers and worked to map a path through a complex primary. Assuming Feinstein holds on, none of them will be getting Newsom’s nod or the awesome powers of incumbency.
And what of Feinstein’s imprimatur? She hasn’t endorsed a favored successor yet or indicated she will, although she is closer to Schiff than the other contenders. But her blessing may not move the needle. Indeed, it could be a liability with the many progressive voters who are ready to put the Feinstein era in the past and shift California’s Senate representation to the left.
This article first appeared in an edition of the California Playbook PM newsletter.
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Her travel back to Washington follows a conversation last week with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, in which she said she could return as soon as this week. It is not yet clear if Feinstein will participate in Tuesday night’s floor votes.
“I’m glad that my friend Dianne is back in the Senate and ready to roll up her sleeves and get to work. After talking with her multiple times over the past few weeks, it’s clear she’s back where she wants to be and ready to deliver for California,” Schumer said in a statement Tuesday.
Feinstein’s return will put two nominees in the spotlight, in part because Feinstein’s absence is not the only vote holding them up. Senate Democrats will now have to grapple with the nomination of Michael Delaney for the First Circuit, which has been held over in Judiciary for weeks and could face further problems on the floor. Delaney faces criticism, even from some Democrats, over his representation of a school in a sexual assault case.
Feinstein’s vote could also be critical for Julie Su, President Joe Biden’s pick for Secretary of Labor. A handful of moderate Democrats, including Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Jon Tester (D-Mont.) have declined to say whether they will support her on the floor. Any Democratic defections would make Feinstein’s vote even more critical in the 51-49 Senate.
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During the Trump years, administration officials reportedly discussed deploying the Constitution’s 25th Amendment, which can be invoked to remove a president deemed unfit to serve. But no similar mechanism exists for dislodging members of Congress.
At the same time, Washington has become a gerontocracy. Match up the demographic reality with the political reality of a deeply polarized Senate and a majority so slender that the absence of a single lawmaker can mean almost nothing gets done, and the cries for reform may grow louder. That’s true even as legal scholars and those on Capitol Hill acknowledge how difficult it will be to act.
Stephen Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas and an expert on constitutional law, told me that after the Sept. 11 attacks, the special Continuity of Government Commission examined the issue of incapacitated lawmakers. The panel ultimately confirmed that under the Constitution, the sole tool Congress has to oust a member is an expulsion vote, which requires a two-thirds majority.
Expulsion has happened just 15 times in Senate history — and 14 of them were senators who sided with the Confederacy during the Civil War. Expulsion proceedings have started in other cases of alleged corruption or wrongdoing since then, but either they fell short of the two-thirds threshold, or the senator resigned before a vote. None were ousted because of health or disability.
The only other senator expelled in all of U.S. history was for treason back in 1797. In other words, Confederate sympathizers aside, expulsion is so rare that just as many senators — one — have been kicked out as have been elected despite being dead.
Given how many elderly senators there are nowadays, with some risk of becoming incapacitated, “this is a big problem,” Vladeck wrote in an email. “There may not be an obvious way to solve it short of (1) a more robust use of the expulsion power; or (2) a constitutional amendment.”
The framers, of course, could not have envisioned the problem of a Senate filled with rapidly aging members. Life expectancy in the late 18th century, when the Constitution was written, was much shorter than it is now. A minimum age for senators, 30, was established, but there was no upper limit.
Dementia was less common in those days, simply because people died of other things first. And trying to impose a maximum age at this point would be highly contentious.
“It’s an unwieldy solution as not everyone who is older is unable to serve — and it’s also disrespectful, if not quite disenfranchisement, of older voters,” said Spelman College political scientist Dorian Brown Crosby, as it would deprive them of representation by their peers and send a message that all old people were washed up.
And without any imminent institutional or constitutional way to address fitness and age, Brown Crosby said it’s up to lawmakers themselves to “take an internal assessment.” She noted that former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her top lieutenants accepted that the time had come to hand off leadership to a new generation even though they continued to serve in the House.
Under the 25th Amendment, a president can be relieved of their powers if the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet determine the president is unable to fulfil the duties of the office. Could something similar be established for lawmakers?
Amending the Constitution is never easy, although this would be the sort of proposal that doesn’t have a built-in partisan advantage, as both Republicans and Democrats get old. Perhaps it could even gain traction among the public in today’s populist, anti-establishment moment. But for the moment, there’s no such movement bubbling up.
Given the changes in longevity, many people — not just senators — often work past the traditional retirement age of the mid-60s. But some workplaces have mandatory retirement ages; airline pilots are a good example. And employers have other ways, gentle or blunt, of terminating a worker who no longer has the mental acuity to perform the job. Voters have the ultimate say for politicians, but what if something happens in the middle of a term?
In the Senate, some lawmakers have stayed on the job even though their diminished capacity was increasingly apparent, even in an institution that over the decades has refined the art of turning a blind eye.
Few octogenarian Senate brains get the attention that Feinstein receives. That’s partly because reports have circulated for several years now that she has short-term memory gaps and sometimes seems confused. Feinstein has repeatedly rejected any suggestion that she’s not fully up to the job.
But what’s really driving the unusually public scrutiny of Feinstein’s health now is that she serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee at a particularly fraught moment. That’s the committee that decides whether President Joe Biden’s judicial nominees go to the floor for vote. It’s also the committee that would initiate any investigation of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas amid questions of his compliance with court ethics and disclosure practices.
Without Feinstein, the Democrats don’t have a majority on the committee to carry out their agenda — and the last thing the Republicans are going to cooperate on right now is the nation’s courts. The GOP nixed Feinstein’s request to allow a fellow Democrat to temporarily take her spot on the committee. That boxed the Democrats in. No Di-Fi, no judges.
“Having this conversation [on aging senators] is important,” said Molly Reynolds, an expert on Congress and governance at the Brookings Institution. That’s particularly true now because the frequent use of the Senate filibuster means confirming nominees, which only requires a simple majority, is often the only thing getting done in a sharply divided Senate.
Feinstein hasn’t been in the Capitol since late February, absent because of what her office described as a diagnosis of shingles. That condition usually resolves in three to five weeks, though some people develop longer lasting and very painful complications.
Patience in the party is wearing thin. In an unusual break with tradition, reflecting the widespread perception of her frailty, two House Democrats declared they’d run for her seat even before she formally announced in mid-February that she wouldn’t run for re-election next year. Still, so far just four Democratic House members have called for Feinstein to step down now, before her term ends in January 2025 when she would be 91. Zero senators have followed suit, at least in public.
And in an institution that prides itself on collegiality, and is increasingly defined by its elderly cohort, expulsion of any senator for health reasons is simply not a realistic outcome.
In any event, scattered public calls to resign aren’t the equivalent of an institutional tool to address impairment. People — not just aging senators — don’t always recognize their own decline or have trouble accepting it.
And if they are a senator, “they just don’t have a lot of incentive to move on,” said Victoria Nourse, a professor at Georgetown’s Law School and executive director of its Center on Congressional Studies. They have power. They get attention. Many truly value public service. And it can be a cushy gig, with aides ferrying them this way or that.
The Senate has seen it all before, most notably with Strom Thurmond, who served from 1954-2003, and didn’t retire until he was 100. For a good number of years, it was clear to anyone watching that he was taking directions from his staff, rather than the other way around. Nourse worked on the Hill in those days and recalled, “I was there with Strom, and he did reasonably well because he had a senior staffer who was the shadow senator.”
Sen. Robert Byrd, the longest serving senator ever, stepped down as majority leader in 1989 at age 71 but remained in the Senate for two more decades, chairing the Appropriations Committee for part of that time. He finally surrendered his gavel in November 2008, at the start of the economic crash that would become known as the Great Recession.
He had periods of illness and long hospitalizations. His colleagues treated the old man, who gave flowery speeches laced with references to Roman statesmen, with a mix of respect and indulgence. But his absences meant Majority Leader Harry Reid “basically ran the Appropriations Committee while also serving as leader,” recalled former Reid aide Jim Manley. Byrd refused to resign though, and died, in office, in June 2010. He had served 51 years, 5 months and 26 days.
And that’s basically how it works. Senate leaders fill in, work around and quietly advocate for retirement in conversations with a chief of staff or family members.
Leadership would “work with the chief of staff and probably with the senator’s spouse as well and try to talk through the issues and figure out what, if anything, to do,” Manley said. If a senator had a decent chance of recovery, for instance from a stroke or after treatment for cancer, they’d figure out how to make do in the short-term. If the decline was irreversible, they might try to persuade them that resignation was the best course.
It’s all handled very discreetly, and the senator in question doesn’t necessarily budge. None of the surviving Senate leaders of the past quarter-century, contacted via email or through aides, responded to requests for comment.
In Feinstein’s case, allies have rebuffed pressure for her to retire early. In fact, POLITICO reported last month that some confidants are saying the senator, who has been in California for the last few months, might even finish her term without ever returning to Washington, though there is some hope she could return next week.
One former Republican leadership aide, granted anonymity to speak frankly about his former boss’ behind-the-scenes interactions with lawmakers, said that, historically, party leaders tended to leave health and resignation decisions up to the senators themselves, particularly when one party had a big enough majority that the presence or absence of one individual wouldn’t make a big difference. That has changed somewhat in recent years, the former aide said, but when “health comes up, it’s usually carefully couched in a discussion about the energy, drive and commitment to run and serve another six-year term.”
Politics, of course, can also play a role. A party leader may be less likely to urge someone to retire if the governor would appoint someone from the other party to fill the seat, or if voters in a special election would likely vote for the other side.
That’s not a question in heavily Democratic California, where the Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom would appoint a senator to serve until the next election.
But as Feinstein’s situation illustrates, it’s increasingly hard for a lawmaker to hide from the glare — other than with prolonged absences that bring their own attention. Mental fumbles are more readily seen, whether it’s on C-SPAN or YouTube or a committee’s own webcast. The press corps, and certainly social media, are less likely to be protective or reverential than in bygone eras.
“There are ongoing changes in society, in media,” said Manley. “You can’t hide things.”
But unless major institutional or constitutional changes occur, you still can’t do much about them either.
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“It was in his notes, and he would have said if someone asked,” Schumer’s spokesperson told POLITICO.
Earlier on Tuesday Feinstein’s office told POLITICO that Feinstein “continues to make progress in her recovery” from shingles, but that her staff “don’t have a timeline yet for her return to Washington, which is dependent on her medical team saying it is safe to travel.”
A Feinstein spokesperson confirmed the senator and Schumer spoke, originally confirming the majority leader’s notes that the conversation occurred Monday and later saying that it happened Sunday night.
Senate Republicans blocked an attempt by Democrats last month to temporarily replace Feinstein on the Judiciary panel.
House Democrats, including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) have called on Feinstein to resign before the end of her term to allow a replacement to be appointed.
The race to replace Feinstein is already crowded, with House Democratic Reps. Adam Schiff, Katie Porter and Barbara Lee battling for the seat in deep-blue California. Complicating their races is Newsom’s 2021 commitment to appoint a Black woman for the Senate, should Feinstein resign.
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“The question is, how long until she goes back? So if it’s three months, I don’t know, that becomes a really difficult question. If it’s a couple of weeks? I’m fine with it,” said Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.). “I’m not going to pressure her one way or the other. But I think, you know, if it’s going to be months and months? My guess is that … she will be her own harshest critic.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) blocked Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s Tuesday afternoon request for unanimous consent to add Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) temporarily to the Judiciary Committee. In theory, that could tee up a floor vote on the matter, but Democrats don’t have the 10 GOP votes they’d need to move forward.
“This is about a handful of judges that you can’t get the votes for,” Graham said.
Indeed, Republicans made clear Monday that they would reject Feinstein’s request to temporarily step down from the Judiciary panel. Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) has had to repeatedly delay committee votes on judges since Feinstein’s absence began in late February.
Now Democrats are largely out of options. And Schumer said little Tuesday, declining to get into any resignation talk whatsoever. Feinstein’s future did not come up at Democrats’ Tuesday lunch meeting, according to multiple senators.
“She and I are both very hopeful she will return very soon,” said Schumer, who spoke to Feinstein on Friday.
Unless Feinstein returns or resigns, all Democrats can do is wait. Feinstein’s term ends at the end of 2024, and her office on Tuesday pointed to last week’s statement in which she said she expects to come back.
It’s not the first time Democrats have wrestled with tough questions about the twilight of the 89-year-old Feinstein’s career. She faced pressure to step down as the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee during the presidency of Donald Trump and eventually acceded to those demands. She also passed on the role of Senate pro tempore, which as the most senior senator of the majority party would put her in the line of presidential succession.
Now, Democrats expect her to make a difficult call about her own health as it threatens to overshadow her rich legacy in politics. Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who is now the pro tempore and was elected the same year as Feinstein, said she has “complete confidence that [Feinstein] will make the right decision for her state and her country.”
“The next step is up to Sen. Feinstein. I hope that means she’ll be returning to us soon,” Durbin said. As to whether she should resign, Durbin added: “This is her decision. She’s had a remarkable career in the Senate. I’m not going to make that decision or even suggest it.”
Publicly, the White House lined up with other Democrats, saying Feinstein deserves a chance to recover and to make her own decisions on her career.
“This is a decision for her to make — when it comes to the future, her future,” said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
Other Democrats noticeably bristled at the suggestion that Feinstein should be forced out, or that the party would talk about her resignation at all. At least three House Democrats have already stated that Feinstein should step down, though no senators have yet joined them.
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) called the resignation talk among Democrats “very selfish.”
“Other people have different reasons and concerns that they couldn’t be here,” Manchin said, referring to a spate of health problems that have sidelined other senators recently. “We never asked them to step aside.”
House Democratic leadership is giving Feinstein similar room to maneuver, with No. 3 Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) saying Tuesday she should set her own timetable. However, he added that as the debt ceiling fight heats up in Congress, “our expectation as House Democrats is that every senator is going to need to participate.”
Yet with the special Senate responsibility of confirming nominees, the problem is already acute across the Capitol.
With Feinstein absent and Republicans refusing to help temporarily replace her, the Judiciary Committee is now tied, hamstringing some Democratic nominees. There are 15 judges who have gone through a hearing — which can be conducted without Feinstein — and are awaiting a panel vote, according to numbers tallied by the American Constitution Society.
Still, there are 18 judges who have already been through the committee and can be brought to a vote on the Senate floor, some of whom may be able to move without the California Democrat.
There are some questions about whether the GOP would even fill Feinstein’s slot on Judiciary if she did resign, given that restoring Democrats’ majority on the panel effectively allows them to unilaterally confirm nominees. Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) said that “whether she resigns or not, it isn’t gonna make any difference.”
But Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a Judiciary Committee member and counsel to Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, said that Republicans may view a Senate vacancy differently than Feinstein’s request to seek a temporary replacement.
“Traditionally that’s when the resolution has been changed — when somebody is no longer able to serve,” Cornyn said. “There’s never been a precedent for a temporary replacement, it’s my understanding. So if the circumstances were to change, I assume that the precedent would be applied.”
Feinstein last voted in the Senate on Feb. 16, kicking off a period in which McConnell and Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) also missed significant time. McConnell and Fetterman have since returned, adding to the pressure on Feinstein. Of course, that already existed in part because her absence was the only one that meant Democrats couldn’t confirm certain judges, the most significant thing the party can unilaterally accomplish during a divided government.
Manchin implored Durbin to send judges to the floor that have bipartisan support, which would allow Schumer to move to confirm more nominees but would also isolate a handful of more controversial nominees. Durbin said he hasn’t made the decision to do that at the moment.
Nicholas Wu contributed to this report.
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Schumer said he is angling to have a conversation with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell about the matter soon — but over the course of Monday, deal-making GOP senators from Collins to Bill Cassidy (R-La.) to Thom Tillis (R-N.C.). lined up in opposition to temporarily replacing Feinstein on the panel.
Republicans’ blockade of the resolution to replace Feinstein will effectively make it tougher for Democrats to confirm more judges — which Biden’s party can normally do unilaterally with a 51-49 majority. The judiciary panel’s chair, Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), has repeatedly delayed committee votes on lifetime appointees during Feinstein’s treatment for shingles. Democrats still have some judicial nominees ready for floor votes, but that list will run dry relatively soon without action at the Judiciary Committee.
Schumer said he expects Feinstein to return to the Senate soon and that “We think the Republicans should allow a temporary replacement till she returns. I hope the Republicans will join us in making sure this happens, since it is the only right and fair thing to do.”
But if her absence continues, the pressure on her to resign her seat will rise exponentially, given how high judges are on her party’s priority list.
“I’m sure we’re going to be talking about this as a caucus this week,” said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.). “These are the kinds of discussions where you really kind of have to get in the room to think it through. We haven’t started those discussions yet.”
Reshuffling the panel’s roster this week would require unanimous consent from all senators, which means just one Republican could block it. And the Judiciary Committee members opposing a Feinstein replacement on Monday included Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Tillis. All cited Democrats’ goal of confirming liberal judicial nominees.
Cornyn said, “Republicans are not going to break this precedent in order to bail out Sen. Schumer or the Biden administration’s most controversial nominees.”
McConnell hasn’t made a statement on Feinstein yet, but comments from Collins and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) made it even more clear the temporary replacement that the 89-year-old senator sought is a dead end for Democrats.
As Murkowski put it: “We need to respect not only Senator Feinstein, but also our protocols here in the Senate.”
Republicans also noted that Democrats were only maneuvering to replace her on the Judiciary panel, not her other committee assignments. Summing up his party’s position, Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) said that “you’re starting to get a flavor that, certainly from Democrats’ standpoint, this is not going to be a slam dunk.”
“The Dems are sort of using this because they want pressure on her to resign. And I think this gives them sort of a lever to do that,” Thune added of Feinstein.
Democrats still haven’t even picked a potential Feinstein replacement. Schumer said he needs to talk to the caucus about who would take her spot on the Judiciary panel, which she was once in line to chair. Durbin said the choice is up to Schumer, but that he’ll be giving recommendations.
With Feinstein absent — and her timetable to ever return to Washington increasingly uncertain — the committee is evenly split between Democrats and Republicans. That means judicial nominees without bipartisan support cannot come to the Senate floor without laborious procedural votes to shake them loose. Even then, those votes would face a 60-senator threshold.
And the stakes are extra-high now: Confirming judges is one of the top Senate Democratic priorities given GOP control of the House.
“Tomorrow, this could happen to the Republicans and they could find themselves in a vulnerable position through no fault of their own,” Durbin said Monday. “And I hope that they’ll show a little kindness and caring for their colleagues.”
Feinstein rejected any talk of resigning in a statement last week, asking that she be removed from the committee until she returns to the Senate in order to allow Judiciary’s work to continue.
There is little recent precedent in the Senate to make a temporary replacement on a committee roster, since changes are usually triggered by a lawmaker leaving the chamber entirely. Notably, Republicans said they would take a different approach if Democrats were seeking approval to seat a replacement California senator on committees, rather than a temporary swap for Feinstein.
Describing Feinstein as currently in “a delicate part of her life and her Senate service,” Durbin said Republicans should “stand by her and give her a dignified departure from the committee.”
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“Ro Khanna has no influence on her whatsoever,” said one California Democrat granted anonymity to discuss the senator’s thinking, referring to the first sitting lawmaker who publicly called on her to resign. Feinstein “is not going to respond to pressure.”
The resolve bubbling up from Feinstein’s orbit adds yet more fuel to the Democratic Party’s combustible situation. The senator has been absent from Congress for nearly two months while dealing with her illness, which means the party can’t move some of President Joe Biden’s nominees through the Judiciary Committee. Aides say they still believe she will return when medically cleared to travel. But Feinstein so far has offered no timeline for when she will be back in Congress, prompting concern among fellow party members that she won’t really return at all.
But even in illness, the senator is characteristically refusing to buckle. Outside pressure campaigns have done little to move Feinstein in the past — and instead have often backfired.
She withstood blistering criticism from the gun lobby over the 1994 assault rifle ban; her support for the death penalty (which she later reversed) and ire from the intel community over her 2014 decision to release a report on the CIA’s use of torture after 9/11. Feinstein later enraged liberals when she suggested in a friendly interview early in his term that Donald Trump might evolve into “a good president,” yet she survived the California Democratic Party abandoning her a few months later in 2018 and handily won reelection that year over a progressive challenger. Even as California voters grew far more progressive than the senator who was first elected in 1992, Feinstein’s politics barely budged.
More recently, she’s dug in when colleagues have questioned her mental acuity. California Democrats are accustomed to what they refer to as the “Feinstein fire drill” — the scramble that takes place after a new set of questions emerge about her health or future.
Allies insist there is a sharp disconnect between media coverage of her current absence and the views among her supporters back home. Feinstein and many of her aides aren’t even on Twitter, not that the political mobs on the platform would sway them anyway. The slights are shrugged off but not forgotten.
Generally, her team is intensely protective of her and not particularly forthright about her health. Her statements to the press come slowly, and are often prompted by persistent questions about her whereabouts and condition rather than as an attempt to inform or shape the narrative around her.
On a personal level, she has long viewed herself as an exacting and effective workhorse for California, pointing to her decades of seniority and relationships to argue that the state would be in far worse hands without her presence in Washington. Just a few months before her shingles diagnosis, she became the longest-serving woman senator.
But now, she has no personal presence in Washington. And her health could turn worse.
Feinstein’s critics argue the situation has become untenable given there’s no clear indication on when she’ll return; that a state of nearly 40 million can’t operate with just one senator. But Khanna’s resignation calls have only been echoed by one other lawmaker — Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) — and may have strengthened Feinstein’s support elsewhere.
Khanna is an early and vocal supporter of California Rep. Barbara Lee, one of the Democrats running to replace Feinstein in 2024. And Lee has privately told associates she disagreed with Khanna’s comments and stressed that the sentiment is not shared by her, according to two people familiar with her conversations. An official with Lee’s campaign declined to comment, pointing to an earlier statement in which they said her primary concern is for Feinstein’s health and that she’s “wishing the senator a full and speedy recovery.”
Lee has gone out of her way to be deferential to Feinstein, waiting to launch her own campaign until the senator said she wasn’t running for reelection. But Feinstein stepping aside early could be beneficial to Lee, as California Gov. Gavin Newsom has pledged to appoint a Black woman if given the chance.
“Does anything Ro Khanna said help Barbara Lee for the purposes of securing an appointment?” asked a close Lee ally. “Of course not.”
Feinstein began exploring whether she could temporarily step down from the Judiciary Committee before the first call to resign, according to a Senate aide familiar with the discussions. And her supporters remain hopeful that her willingness to do so will take some heat off of her. Several Democrats praised the request and said the senator deserves the space to recover.
But, according to several aides, Senate Republicans will almost certainly gum up the process, which requires bipartisan support. They and others expressed skepticism that party leaders would let Democrats so easily make a move that would allow the Biden administration to approve judges.
There appears to be no modern precedent for a senator to be temporarily removed from a committee only to return in the same Congress, though there are recent examples of senators leaving committees for health reasons while still remaining a member of the chamber, according to the Senate Historical Office.
Assuming Republicans block a motion to appoint a replacement by unanimous consent, 60 votes would be needed. Feinstein’s supporters could try to rally votes from some Republicans who have long worked with her, such as Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia or perhaps even Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.
As the political calculations are made, a sadness has set in among many Democrats back home over the fate of the oldest sitting senator. Feinstein’s health complications have mired what should have been a splendid sendoff for a barrier-breaking figure.
A veteran strategist in the state summarized the mood in a word: “heartbreaking.” Another longtime official assessed the feeling in more blunt terms, offering simply that, “she stayed too long at the fair.”
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“There is no Black woman in the Senate, so that commitment was heard across the nation,” said Assemblymember Lori Wilson, chair of the California Legislative Black Caucus. “There are Black women in Texas, in Georgia, who are holding onto: If there’s a vacancy, we’re going to get a Black woman, because Governor Newsom said so.”
A Senate vacancy in California would create outsize implications for the 2024 Senate race and a series of fraught political choices for Newsom. The governor would face enormous pressure to move quickly on his decision, given Democrats’ razor-thin margin in the Senate. He’d also have to decide whether to appoint a caretaker or wade into the contest by naming a contender like Lee.
Feinstein, who plans to retire after next year, said Wednesday she will return to the Senate as soon as her medical team allows — though she didn’t specify a date. In the meantime, she called for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to pick a Democrat to replace her on the important Judiciary Committee.
Newsom has made no public statements on the politically thorny issue in recent days, as some lawmakers openly called for Feinstein’s resignation. When asked if he intends to honor his promise, a spokesperson for his office directed POLITICO to his previous comments.
The governor in 2021 said he had “multiple names” in mind for Feinstein’s replacement, though didn’t specify any. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, Secretary of State Shirley Weber, Los Angeles County Supervisor Holly Mitchell and San Francisco Mayor London Breed have all been floated as potential contenders — though representatives for at least two said they would not accept the nomination.
But Lee, one of the most prominent Black women in California politics, seems to be garnering the most support for the appointment. She is running against fellow congressmembers and formidable fundraisers Katie Porter and Adam Schiff in the fierce competition to replace Feinstein in 2024 — a race that is already creating tension within the California Democratic establishment.
In 2020, San Francisco-based She The People helped organize a pressure campaign to fill Harris’ seat with a Black woman. Last time around, the goal was to uplift both Lee in Northern California and then-Congresswoman Bass in Southern California.
But with Bass now installed as Los Angeles mayor, Lee is the most senior among the contenders to replace Feinstein, said the group’s founder, Aimee Allison. It’s widely expected that the statewide political establishment “will break in favor of Barbara Lee,” she said.
Wilson noted that the California Legislative Black Caucus has already endorsed Lee’s bid for Senate, and said she would like to see the congresswoman appointed in the event Feinstein stepped down.
A representative for Lee’s campaign declined to comment on the prospect of a direct appointment. “The congresswoman’s primary concern is for Sen. Feinstein’s health,” said Lee campaign spokesperson Katie Merrill in a statement. “She is wishing the Senator a full and speedy recovery.”
Appointing someone outside the 2024 Senate contest, such as Weber, could give Newsom an out — allowing him to avoid any show of favoritism between Lee, Porter and Schiff. But there’s no guarantee that such an appointee wouldn’t change their mind and run in 2024.
And it might not be Newsom’s preference, anyway.
“Appointing a caretaker may be the way out of a difficult political situation,” said Rose Kapolczynski, a longtime Democratic consultant known for running former Sen. Barbara Boxer’s campaigns. “But [Newsom’s] history shows that he’s happy to take a risk and appoint someone who’s going to serve and run.”
Adding to the pressure is the fact that Newsom did not not endorse Bass for mayor last year even as nearly every high-powered Democrat, including President Joe Biden, rallied behind her — a political decision that earned him some harsh criticism. In a letter sent ahead of the November election, a coalition of Black women’s groups accused the governor of turning his back on them.
“He selectively supports Black women candidates even when they have overwhelming support from the party leaders and our community,” the letter read.
Newsom has so far not moved off his position to appoint a Black woman to the Senate should it become a possibility.
When asked if Weber would consider the job, Matt Herdman, a spokesperson for her campaign, said, “no comment.”
Bass’ spokesperson Zach Seidl, when asked the same question, responded, “absolutely not.”
Lenée Richards, a spokesperson for Mitchell, said “she would not accept an appointment to the Senate.”
Breed’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Roger Salazar, a veteran California Democratic consultant who has advised statewide and national campaigns, said Newsom could certainly risk alienating Schiff and Porter supporters if he appointed Lee to a vacancy.
But regardless of who he has in mind, Newsom would be expected to make a decision quickly — if it came to that. After Harris vacated her seat, it took Newsom several months to name a successor. Now, given the tight margin for Democrats in the Senate and the ongoing debates around gun control, abortion and the economy, he would not have the same luxury of time.
“There’s no question that there’s going to be an urgency because of the national situation,” Salazar said.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Few people believed Feinstein would seek another term. Reps. Katie Porter and Adam Schiff have both launched campaigns for Senate — although Schiff said his was conditional on Feinstein not running again — and Rep. Barbara Lee is preparing to launch her own.
Despite the widespread presumption that Feinstein would not seek reelection, her announcement on Tuesday nonetheless relieved California Democrats hoping to replace her from the awkward predicament of openly seeking a seat that wasn’t officially open.
Porter tweeted quick praise of the senator she’s hoping to succeed, crediting Feinstein for having “created a path for women in politics that I am proud to follow.” Schiff lauded her as “one of the finest legislators we’ve ever known.”
California’s primary system allows the top two vote-getters to advance to the general election regardless of party. Given the state’s overwhelmingly blue electorate, it’s quite possible that next November Californians will choose between two Democrats as they select their next senator. That was the case during Feinstein’s 2018 victory over Democrat Kevin de León and now-Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2016 victory over former Democratic Rep. Loretta Sanchez.
And whoever does win that race could hold the seat for decades, as Feinstein did.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced Feinstein’s retirement at the Democratic caucus’ weekly lunch on Tuesday, where she received a standing ovation, according to party senators. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) also gave an introduction before Feinstein spoke.
Padilla “explained that his first job in public service was working for Dianne Feinstein,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) recalled after the lunch. “Then he called on Dianne herself, who talked about her husband’s death and how hard that was and that she’s ready to step away from public life.”
While Democratic senators praised Feinstein’s long career, they were more reluctant to discuss who in the increasingly crowded field might replace her.
“Right now, we should just celebrate the amazing career of Sen. Feinstein, who has served her country with distinction and honor,” said Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), chair of the caucus’ campaign arm. “There will be plenty of time talk about the election in the future.”
Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) said he hoped “the voters of California will reflect on her record and her contributions, and that that will help inform the race in terms of what kind of leaders California’s voters want.”
Asked about the impact of Feinstein’s retirement on the race to succeed her, Warren — who has endorsed Porter — said she couldn’t speak to California politics. But she described her fellow progressive as “family.”
“When [Porter] said she would be in the Senate race, I said, like we always do with family: ‘I’ll be all the way with you,’” Warren said.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Rep. Nancy Pelosi is shown. | Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Rep. Nancy Peolsi on Thursday endorsed Rep. Adam Schiff in California’s high-profile Senate primary, backing the former House Intelligence Committee chair but only on the condition that Sen. Dianne Feinstein opts not to run again.
“If Senator Feinstein decides to seek re-election, she has my whole-hearted support. If she decides not to run, I will be supporting House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff, who knows well the nexus between a strong Democracy and a strong economy,” Pelosi (D-Calif.), a two-time speaker of the House who stepped down from leadership earlier this year, said in an email. “In his service in the House, he has focused on strengthening our Democracy with justice and on building an economy that works for all.”
A spokesperson for Feinstein did not immediately return an email seeking comment on Pelosi’s announcement.
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