Feinstein hospitalized..again.

theprestige said:
Especially when you realize that the only real qualification for being a US Senator is reliably voting the party line on any bill that makes it out of committee. Newsom could appoint a coffee barista, and as long as she does what the party whip says, she's qualified.
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With the caveat that often party power comes with seniority. Long serving incumbents often have more important committee assignments that probably won't transfer to a junior member who successfully mounts a primary challenge. Incumbency bias isn't totally irrational.

Dems don't rely as heavily on seniority as Republicans, but it's still certainly a big factor in how these positions of influence are doled out.
 
theprestige said:
People who accept that they must campaign against an elected incumbent, but question the propriety of being forced to campaign against an incumbent that was never elected, but rather appointed through political gamesmanship.
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It sounds like you're describing yourself. Governor appointment of interim Senators has always been in the Constitution, even before the 17th Amendment. It isn't even that rare of an occurrence.

I wonder how many of Alex Padilla's Democratic primary opponents seriously questioned the propriety of "being forced...," etc.
 
Reformed Offlian said:
Alex Padilla faced opponents in the Democratic primary in 2022, so I'm not sure that's actually true.

ETA: I got around to reading the article you linked, and your characterization of "the party" is bass ackwards from the take home lessons from that article. A lot of "the party" condemned the DCCC's rule as being, well, a DCCC move.
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He faced a couple of gadfly Democrats in the jungle primary (California doesn't have a "Democratic primary").

As for the ETA, I'm thinking of "the party" as the bosses, the apparatus, etc; it is plain they do not approve of primarying incumbents.
 
Reformed Offlian said:
It sounds like you're describing yourself. Governor appointment of interim Senators has always been in the Constitution, even before the 17th Amendment. It isn't even that rare of an occurrence.
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The provision is good, but like many good things it can be cynically gamed. Feinstein could retire at the end of this term, and let her successor be chosen by democratic election. Or she could cling to her Senate seat until the bitter end, let Newsom appoint her successor, who would then have the incumbent advantage.

The constitution provides a necessary contingency. That doesn't mean it's always the best option.
 
This can go here, since we're talking about old age.

https://apnews.com/article/afaa58f65bfd6612300ae5a925c7cc55

A 96-year-old U.S. federal appeals court judge was barred Wednesday from hearing cases for a year after a panel said she refused to undergo medical testing amid concerns that she is no longer mentally fit to serve on the bench.

It’s the latest development in an unusually public and bitter fight over whether Judge Pauline Newman should continue to serve on the Washington-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that has sparked a lawsuit and turned judges against one another.

Newman, a President Ronald Reagan appointee who has been on the court for nearly four decades, insists that she remains physically and mentally fit to decide matters of the law, and has accused her colleagues of making baseless claims in an effort to push her out because of her age.
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