Global Courant
WASHINGTON—
Along with speculation about Senator Dianne Feinstein’s health and ability to serve, the California Democrat’s two-month absence from the Capitol earlier this year exposed the deep partisan distrust that permeates the U.S. Senate and is a vital part of the agenda. of President Biden threatens to undermine.
Democrats remain skeptical of Republicans’ assurances that if the 89-year-old Feinstein stepped down before her term expires in early 2025, there would be no political play in replacing her on the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee, the narrowly divided panel that votes on Biden’s nominations for federal justice.
Feinstein’s return to Washington last month eased but didn’t allay those concerns, given her age, frail health and obvious difficulty keeping up a busy schedule and retaining all the duties of a senator.
“One of the uncertainties is whether Republicans will agree to take her seat. That’s the big unknown for me,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) told The Times.
Earlier this spring, while she was still absent, Republicans rejected a Democratic bid to temporarily replace Feinstein on the committee with Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) — with some claiming there was no precedent for it and a senior GOP senator says that Republicans would not “help what we consider controversial or unqualified nominees to be confirmed.”
The lack of confidence in Republicans — especially if a Supreme Court seat were to open — stems from 2016, when then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) blocked consideration of President Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland as a member of the Supreme Court. the U.S. Supreme Court to fill a vacancy created by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.
McConnell’s maneuver, which swung the court farther to the right, remains etched in the minds of Senate Democrats.
“He has proven to be ruthless in his cunning,” Blumenthal said of McConnell.
While recovering from a case of shingles, Feinstein missed dozens of votes and, due to the Judiciary Committee’s narrow voting margins, her absence delayed the process of approving judges, even as certain nominees were able to get through with bipartisan support. Recent polls conducted by the Times showed that about 42% of voters wanted her to step down so Governor Gavin Newsom could nominate a replacement to serve out the remainder of her term. Two thirds said her condition means she is not fit for office.
Newsom has pledged to nominate a black woman if one of California’s U.S. senate seats becomes vacant — a calculation made more difficult because the field vying to replace Feinstein when her current term ends contains only one formidable black woman candidate : Democratic Representative Barbara Lee of Oakland.
If Feinstein stepped down, Newsom’s appointee would not automatically be placed on the committees she sits on — meaning the Judiciary Committee would be made up of 10 Republicans and 10 Democrats.
In the event of a sudden vacancy in the Senate, a vote to add a senator to a committee would be routine. Unlike the move to temporarily eliminate her this spring, some senior Republicans insist there is enough precedent to permanently replace her on committees and suggested such a move would not be controversial.
Senate Historian Emeritus Donald Ritchie said Feinstein’s absence was far from the longest and that her weaknesses while still in office were far from the most serious in the chamber’s history. It is a body that has had a number of old and ailing members over the years that have had to be taken care of.
There was, he said, Virginia Senator Carter Glass, chairman of the powerful Appropriations Committee in the 1940s, who missed work for four years after being incapacitated by heart problems.
Then there was California Senator Clair Engel, who had to be wheeled to the Senate floor in 1964 to break an epic filibuster during the Civil Rights Act debate. Stricken with a brain tumor, Engel was unable to speak, so instead of saying ‘yes’ he pointed to his eye to indicate his voice and amplify the passage of the groundbreaking legislation. Six weeks later he died.
Ritchie said members are aware of that history, and that senators have historically been very cooperative about their colleagues’ health and replaced them if they couldn’t serve a term. This collegiality stemmed in part from a belief among senators that “this could happen to me too,” he said. McConnell, who is 81, missed working for about a month this year after a fall resulted in a concussion and several broken ribs.
But now “the judiciary is the Senate’s most polarized committee,” he said. “It’s not clear anyone else can get on the committee if Feinstein can’t serve. Partisanship prevents that from happening. It is a pity. The institution suffers from that level of political partisanship.”
During her absence and in the first few weeks she was back, Democrats mostly refrained from speculating about Feinstein’s future in the Senate. Many said it was up to her to decide whether she was fit to serve or not — reiterating how important it was for her to be at the Capitol to cast crucial votes in favor of the party.
Then late last month, former Senator Hillary Clinton opened the conversation in an interview with Time magazine.
“Here’s the dilemma: The Republicans will not agree to add anyone else to the Judiciary Committee when she retires,” she said.
“I don’t know in her heart if she really would like to (resign) or not, but right now she can’t. Because if we get judges confirmed, which is one of the most important ongoing commitments we have, then we can’t afford to leave her seat vacant.”
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, who sits next to Feinstein on the Judiciary Committee, followed by a tweet. “Hillary gets it: The same rule Republicans used to block replacing Dianne on the judiciary while she was sick can also be used if she resigns completely from the committee or the Senate,” he wrote.
McConnell, who should gather the necessary votes for a Feinstein replacement, declined to comment on this article.
Longtime Republican strategist Scott Jennings, based in McConnell’s home state of Kentucky, said his former boss “is not an anti-institutionalist. He never was, despite the Democrats hyperventilating.”
“There may be a routine vacancy,” Jennings said. “Therefore, it should be governed by the norms and rules that we would normally work with. I would just be baffled if the majority party couldn’t somehow operate normally.
Senator Dianne Feinstein attends a business meeting of the Judiciary Committee on May 18 after returning to the Senate.
(Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times)
Senator Lindsey Graham (RS.C.), who serves on the Judiciary Committee, said that if Feinstein stepped down, he would be “in the camp to follow Senate precedent and replace the person, consistent with what we have done in the past. .”
In a recent interview, Graham told The Times that he respected Senate traditions and would not want them undermined at this time. He added that he thought this scenario was very different from Garland’s nomination, when Democrats were “trying to get someone confirmed in an election year.”
Two top McConnell allies shared Graham’s views but were much less committed than the South Carolina legislature. Second-class Senate Republican John Thune of South Dakota told The Times it was “all speculation” at this point, but acknowledged that there is “a precedent for someone definitively stepping aside” for their replacement to get committee orders.
Another member of the Republican Judiciary Committee, Texas Senator John Cornyn, who is close to McConnell, made a similar argument.
“There would be negotiation, but I think the biggest objection was to do this temporarily,” Cornyn said. “I think if the seat were free, it would be very different.”
Feinstein’s return allowed the committee to pick up and send to the full Senate six justices who lacked Republican support. There are currently 74 judicial vacancies and 29 nominations pending in committee or awaiting a vote by the full Senate. In his first two years in office, Biden managed to get more people lifetime commitments on the federal bench than Trump or President Obama.
Still, the comments of elected officials like Graham leave Democrats with little comfort.
“We’ve seen Republicans break all kinds of traditions,” said Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.). “I think ten years ago her request to consider a temporary out-of-committee transfer would have been easily granted.”
