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Weekend at Feinstein's

TurkeysGhost

Penultimate Amazing
TurkeysGhost
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Apr 2, 2018
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Tales of the Gerontocracy

Senator Dianne Feinstein of California returned to the Senate on Wednesday, weeks shy of her 90th birthday. For nearly three months, she has been absent, the result of a serious case of shingles. Even now she can only work part time, she said in a statement released by her office. In photos that must double as proof of life, she looks fragile, stooped over in a wheelchair. That can hardly be how she’d like to be remembered. Yet as her long career in politics draws to a close, the senator is demolishing whatever legacy she’d hoped to leave. She has become a ghoulish spectacle and a warning: The system she represents is in trouble.
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https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/05/dianne-feinsteins-return-is-a-ghoulish-spectacle.html

A picture is worth a thousand words.
 
From the link:
Yet as her long career in politics draws to a close, the senator is demolishing whatever legacy she’d hoped to leave. She has become a ghoulish spectacle and a warning: The system she represents is in trouble.
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:rolleyes:

That sounds like a whiney complaint the woman didn't resign a year or two ago, manufactured outrage of a sort.

Temporarily maybe but a couple years from now she'll be remembered as one of those Senators who kept plugging along and was a good voice for her constituents until the last election which is when she should have resigned (ie not run again).

It's not like Senators get remembered forever anyway. POTUSes maybe, Speaker, maybe, and the head of the Senate, maybe. So what is this legacy they speak of anyway?

Seems to me like we remember the bad guys more than the good. ;)
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
From the link:
:rolleyes:

That sounds like a whiney complaint the woman didn't resign a year or two ago, manufactured outrage of a sort.

Temporarily maybe but a couple years from now she'll be remembered as one of those Senators who kept plugging along and was a good voice for her constituents until the last election which is when she should have resigned (ie not run again).

It's not like Senators get remembered forever anyway. POTUSes maybe, Speaker, maybe, and the head of the Senate, maybe. So what is this legacy they speak of anyway?

Seems to me like we remember the bad guys more than the good. ;)
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I mean, it's how we got here right? RBG rolled the actuarial dice and came up snake eyes, and poof there goes Roe.

Now Biden can't do the incremental work of getting control the judiciary with liberal appointees because another geriatric refused to strategically resign.

For a country run by geriatrics we don't seem to have any good contingency plans for when this inevitable situation arises.
 
Indeed.
That seat is for her constituents, not for her, personally. How is she making sure they are represented by being constantly absent?

If she can't do her job she should make room for a replacement.
 
So what do we do on a functional level? Order people not to vote for anyone old?

That's the problem with Democracy. What do you do when the people make the wrong choice?

Sure we can just make a rule that nobody X or older can hold office but I kind feel like that would go badly. It's not like the 35 or older for President (and maybe some other offices, I don't know off the top of my head) this rule change would remove a lot of people who people are (obviously since that's the whole issue) still voting for.

What do we do put a referendum out "Vote yes or not on whether or not you don't get to decide how old is too old?"
 
JoeMorgue said:
So what do we do on a functional level? Order people not to vote for anyone old?

That's the problem with Democracy. What do you do when the people make the wrong choice?

Sure we can just make a rule that nobody X or older can hold office but I kind feel like that would go badly. It's not like the 35 or older for President (and maybe some other offices, I don't know off the top of my head) this rule change would remove a lot of people who people are (obviously since that's the whole issue) still voting for.

What do we do put a referendum out "Vote yes or not on whether or not you don't get to decide how old is too old?"
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Let's not pretend there aren't things the party can do, or at least could have done in the recent past to deal with this obvious risk.

Hell, if they had made it clear that primary challenges would have been welcome, that might have been the kiss of death for Feinstein. Normally there's quite a bit of retribution that comes from a primary challenge against an incumbent in good standing, but if the party made it clear that the seat was for the taking good challengers would have gone for it. It's basically an unspoken rule that challenging incumbents makes you a persona non grata with the party in the future (recall the fit the party threw when AOC knocked off the incumbent of a safe blue district) if you lose, so removing that risk would be a big help.

Informing Feinstein and her handlers staff that the party meant to publicly endorse a challenge might have been the nudge needed to convince her to retire with dignity. Better to play a role naming your successor than get the old heave-ho.

I'm not exactly sure what the mechanics of assigning committee seats are. Even if Feinstein is determined to drool away her final days in office, is there no way for the party to have assigned her critical committees to someone else? Being older dirt I'm sure Feinstein has lots of seniority pull, but surely there was some face-saving assignment they could put her into where her infirmity wasn't so costly.
 
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TurkeysGhost said:
Let's not pretend there aren't things the party can do, or at least could have done in the recent past to deal with this obvious risk.
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Yeah but you can't say the quiet part out loud.

I get into a fight here on the board every Political Primary because I point out the whole thing only makes sense if it's the Party Leadership telling the voters who to vote for, not the other way around.

But pull down that puppet theater and I don't know what the parties are even there for.

Anything that is gonna read like "No we're basically telling you you can't vote for her" is gonna come off bad.

I'm not on Feinstein's side here, I've spoke at length at how absurd it is that the vast, vast, vast bulk of political power in this country is held by people who's age is "Statistically died 10-20 years ago."

Just any solution beyond "somehow convince people to stop voting for them voluntarily" doesn't sit well with me.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Yeah but you can't say the quiet part out loud.

I get into a fight here on the board every Political Primary because I point out the whole thing only makes sense if it's the Party Leadership telling the voters who to vote for, not the other way around.

But pull down that puppet theater and I don't know what the parties are even there for.

Anything that is gonna read like "No we're basically telling you you can't vote for her" is gonna come off bad.

I'm not on Feinstein's side here, I've spoke at length at how absurd it is that the vast, vast, vast bulk of political power in this country is held by people who's age is "Statistically died 10-20 years ago."

Just any solution beyond "somehow convince people to stop voting for them voluntarily" doesn't sit well with me.
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It would be a lighter touch than that. It's not so much that the party would be explicitly bad mouthing Feinstein, it's just that all the money and endorsements would happen to coalesce around a primary challenger. Get all your superstars in the party to hype up the hot new thing in the primary and most everyone will know what the score is. Isn't Obama available?

Or, like I say, just let Feinstein know this is going to happen if she doesn't resign. The threat alone may be enough and could take place entirely behind closed doors.

It's like Jazz, the attacks are in the words you don't hear.

This kind of meddling isn't unheard of, the party is not exactly known for a strict "hands off" rule for primaries.
 
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And I know this isn't the angle anyone wants to look at this from, but it's kind of crappy to the people in the position as well. I don't know enough about Feinstein but RJB, regardless of what you think about her decision to stay in office, deserved to spend her golden years enjoying her life not working in a high stress job.

Let's make the elderly cancer survivor work until she literally drops dead because we screwed up so bad she's the only thing left between us and a functioning democracy doesn't exactly sound great even if it is true.
 
JoeMorgue said:
And I know this isn't the angle anyone wants to look at this from, but it's kind of crappy to the people in the position as well. I don't know enough about Feinstein but RJB, regardless of what you think about her decision to stay in office, deserved to spend her golden years enjoying her life not working in a high stress job.

Let's make the elderly cancer survivor work until she literally drops dead because we screwed up so bad she's the only thing left between us and a functioning democracy doesn't exactly sound great even if it is true.
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A dignified retirement is a gift they have to give themselves in the end.

RBG had a safe off ramp until as late as 2013. Kagan got on the bench in 2010 and Sotomayor in 2009, so it's plainly true that a liberal justice could have been confirmed had RBG done the smart thing.

Likewise nobody would have found it strange for Feinstein simply not to run for re-election in 2018, and she would probably be remember better riding off into the sunset at her own choosing rather than being dragged out the Senate on a gurney.
 
I had totally forgotten that California has the Jungle Primary. her general election competitor in the last election was also a Democrat.

It went 55-45. Kinda feel like a concerted push from the party for her opposition could have been the deciding factor.
 
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JoeMorgue said:
So what do we do on a functional level? Order people not to vote for anyone old?
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We don't have to give them seats on critical committees. Or at least have a fallback that allows colleagues to sub in for you in the event of an extended absence.

The problem isn't that she's old, infirm, and still there as she has been for the last thirty years. The problem is she's old, infirm, and still a critical and irreplaceable part of the workings of Democratic governance as she has been for the last thirty years, with absolutely no plan whatsoever should she not be able to perform her duties. She just had shingles, which sucks a bunch, I grant you, but no appointments got approved until she came back. That would have been the time for a contingency plan to trigger. It didn't. There is no fallback. It is her or nothing. Just like the current Pres race is Biden or nothing. No one else is even remotely prepared or positioned to step up should either of them have a heart attack.
 
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Which is to say, the problem isn't Feinstein, it's Congress. It's the way it is because Representatives benefit from having it this way. None of them are going to advocate a House rule that allows them to oust Feinstein if they decide she's not fit for purpose. Because such a rule would get used to deprive them of their power and influence as well, sooner or later. Just like Congress is never going to outlaw congressional insider trading.
 
Re RBG, I was not aware her mental faculties were declining and given McConnell's goal is to **** up the court system with Federalists (who are no doubt somewhere also paying him off) one can only look in hindsight at when she should have resigned.

IOW, this is not a comparable analogy except maybe the hindsight part where Feinstein shouldn't have run the last time.


McConnell, the bully in the Senate who gets away with one devious plan after another, has vowed to block any attempt by the Democrats to fill Feinstein's Judiciary Committee seat. Apparently it takes 60 votes to fill a committee seat. And that's whether she resigns from the committee or the Senate. A replacement should she resign would not automatically take that Judiciary seat.

I wonder if Biden or Shumer can just lop off a GOP committee seat if McConnell were to block a Democrat as a replacement?
 
TurkeysGhost said:
I mean, it's how we got here right? RBG rolled the actuarial dice and came up snake eyes, and poof there goes Roe.

Now Biden can't do the incremental work of getting control the judiciary with liberal appointees because another geriatric refused to strategically resign.

For a country run by geriatrics we don't seem to have any good contingency plans for when this inevitable situation arises.
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Geronotocracies rarely do have workable succession rules.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
McConnell, the bully in the Senate who gets away with one devious plan after another, has vowed to block any attempt by the Democrats to fill Feinstein's Judiciary Committee seat. Apparently it takes 60 votes to fill a committee seat. And that's whether she resigns from the committee or the Senate. A replacement should she resign would not automatically take that Judiciary seat.
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A person born yesterday would have seen this coming. It's getting a bit a bit tired for Democrats to play the "we didn't expect the Republicans to be bad faith obstructionists" card at this point.

At this point failing to anticipate such moves and plan accordingly speaks very poorly about the seriousness of the Democratic party.
 
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