California Dem Party Won’t Endorse Dianne Feinstein As She Seeks 5th Term
I wonder who’s going to get the blame for this.
I guess politics is not a profession, where the professionals want to leave while they are still on (or near) the top of their profession.
U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein failed to win the official endorsement of the California Democratic Party
Good.
Its really not.
We have a chance to take back the Senate, no matter how slender that is. Which would mean Feinstein would be Chair of the Judicary…with subpoena power.
Take a look around you at the current environment.
If the Democrats take back the Senate, Judiciary will be chaired by a Democrat, Feinstein or otherwise.
Your comment is an example of strategic thinking. Sadly most people vote impulse or emotion or ideological prejudice.
One who knows where all the skeletons are?
If that’s your only criterion: Leahy has been on that committee longer than anyone else currently on it; plus for much of that time he chaired it.
Someone with a great deal less experience and seniority on the Judiciary Committee. That’s not an improvement.
Leahy is ranking member of the Appropriations Committee. There is no way he is going to chair two powerful committees at the same time.
Would it fall to Dick Durbin?
That’s incorrect.
As I just said: “Leahy has been on that committee longer than anyone else currently on it; plus for much of that time he chaired it.”
Interesting to compare the California Democratic Party’s free and open debate with CPAC and, in particular, the way Mona Charen was booed off the stage (needing security protection to exit) for daring to speak her mind.
When people tell you the two major political parties are the same, they’re not.
In the event that a party comes to power in the Senate, committee assignments are negotiated. Seniority is not always the determinant. As @daveyjones64 pointed out, someone can be senior on more than one committee, in which case they can often pick which chair they want to pursue in negotiations.
On Judiciary as currently constituted, Durbin would have a chance, assuming he wanted to pursue it, but there are some other good candidates.
Needless to say, I’m not necessarily averse to Feinstein being chair, either.
And as I just said, Leahy is the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee. If we retake the Senate, he becomes Chair of that, not the Judiciary.
But thanks for bringing up Leahy. Saves us the time of tearing down your eventual argument that she is too old.
If she lost, and we retook the Senate?
Probably. But Durbin is on a lot of committees (and is the ranking member on at least 2 subcommittees, Defense and Constitution). So there would probably be some juggling between lots of senior Senators.
Which is kind of the bigger point here. Losing someone of her experience and institutional knowledge at this point, is not a good thing. That’s complicated even more by the fact that a number of our younger Senators are being bantered around as potential Presidential candidates. So even though they may “stay” Senators on the committees, the reality is they are lost to the campaign trail for at least 1 year, if not both.
[quote=“daveyjones64, post:16, topic:68985, full:true”]
Saves us the time of tearing down your eventual argument that she is too old.[/quote]
I suggest you focus your attempts on “tearing down” arguments I actually make, as opposed to ones you imagine I will eventually make.
First you said that California Democrats are making a mistake because, if the Democrats take back the US Senate, the California party, by withholding its endorsement, will have deprived Feinstein of this chairmanship. Which is not necessarily true, because Feinstein can win her Senate race regardless of any endorsement — and anyway, it’s also not critical because there are other Democrats who would, and could, chair Judiciary.
Then, when I mentioned Leahy’s name, you asserted that he has “a great deal less experience and seniority on the Judiciary Committee” — which is, well, let’s just say it’s counter-factual.
And now you speculate that Leahy would prefer Appropriations to Judiciary — which may be the case, or it may not be. He has made confounding choices before, as have many senators.
Do you assume she will lose her Senate nomination race if the party endorses neither her nor her opponent?
I don’t think Chuck Grassley and Mitch McConnell are lying awake at night in fear at Sen Feinstein’s next cunning maneuver. On the contrary. They can count on her to not make trouble.
Unless there are extraordinary justifications for doing otherwise, Democratic senators should retire at the first electoral opportunity past the age of 80. Feinstein is the oldest senator. She’s running to stay in office till she’s 91. That’s just crazy. All it will take is one period of incapacitation and we’ll have lost a vote in the Senate. .
Same should apply to Supreme Court justices. Ginsburg, Breyer should quit the minute that Democrats are back in charge. Put the country before your career.