Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA), a trailblazer and the longest serving woman in the Senate, passed away last night at her Washington, D.C. home, according to a statement her office released Friday morning. Feinstein was the Senate’s oldest serving member and was set to retire at the end of her term.
This may not be relevant, but I’m struck by her facial beauty. Wow.
Can someone explain to me why her replacement wouldn’t automatically take her place on Judiciary? McConnell will block all attempts by Dems to appoint judges, including a SC vacancy, should it arise during Biden’s tenure. Schumer doesn’t play hardball and we’ll probably be cheated out of seats like we have been in the past
Wonderful tribute by Schumer. Teary-eyed.
Maybe some people need to listen to this and it will help them understand why the Democrats stood by her until the very end.
She actually made people’s lives better. We could all learn from her example.
RIP, Senator. You’ve earned it.
Here is a very reasonable discussion of the reality of a not very good senator who has a reasonable legacy but has been a problem for a long time. … https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2023/09/feinstein-2
Filibuster.
I don’t know if you need a majority vote on the committee or of the full senate, but in either case you aren’t likely to get the needed votes. This is pretty much the end of Biden being able to appoint federal judges for the remainder of his term. EDIT: This person says it might just slow down appointments even if she cannot be replaced: https://x.com/mjs_DC/status/1707759191438262392?s=20
Is it just me, or is it a little weird that all these tributes use similar language? It seems like such a strange thing to coordinate. And there’s only so much work “trail-blazing” can do.
Read more like a polemic rant to me on many fronts.
It apparently takes a filibuster-proof majority to amend the rules that were passed at the outset of this session when everybody got their committee assignments. This does not end judicial appointments, but it makes them substantially slower because tie votes in committee get delayed in being sent for their floor votes.
All quite foreseeable. Great job, Chuck.
Do you dispute any of the facts asserted in it?
But those replacements seem to have happened from a special rule that expired with the 117th congressional session that allowed either party to move forward with a resolution on a split decision (this was in place because DiFi was going to miss a lot of judiciary committee meetings in the 117th). I don’t know … well above my paygrade.
She was a remarkable woman. From the SF Board of Supervisors to the Senate. We do well to remember all her accomplishments and service to this country.
Yes - as near as I can tell they have to ignore the committee and send judicial nominations straight to a floor vote.
I dispute a lot of the spin regarding some of those facts. Like this bit:
Just a few days before White murdered Milk and Moscone, Jim Jones and his followers had committed mass suicide in Guyana, but that was a San Francisco-based cult. Feinstein took a lesson out of all of this—the counterculture caused problems and so did leftists.
Trying to castigate Feinstein for those things because the Erik Loomis believes she hated “counterculture” or “out gay people” strains credulity.
I am so fed up with his weak “leadership.”
Isn’t that where, on the Joint Chiefs of Staff vote, Schumer scheduled votes on Friday and on weekends? Fighting fire with inconvenience?
Given that it is governed by a Standing Rule of the Senate, I am not sure what you expect any Senate majority leader to do when he or she only has 52 (now temporarily 51) seats to work with.
Senate Rule XXIV, paragraph 1 states: “In the appointment of the standing committees, or to fill vacancies thereon, the Senate, unless otherwise ordered, shall by resolution appoint the chairman of each such committee and the other members thereof.”
I am no Schumer fanboy, but what do you expect a Senate leader to do with nominally 52 seats behind you, to get a resolution passed in the entire Senate to approve an assignment to a standing committee of the Senate?