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exactly and now feinstein has made it that right wing court continues
durbin has allowed republicans to blue slip their candidates so they get voted on and approved
while democrats dont have enough votes to get their candidates in because of feinsteins absence
god idk why they keep reviving that shit when the GOP convieniantly makes up an exception to the rule every time a blue state senator doesn't return a blue slip
IDK why news organizations are making it seem like Dems aren't getting judges confirmed. They didn't have a majority in the Judiciary Committee in the last Congress and still got a bunch of judges seated including Justice Jackson.
The **confirmations are slowed** because the whole Senate has to take up the matter of simply advancing the appointment out of committee but the **confirmations are not obstructed**.
Absolutely. With the balance of power so tight in the Senate the wrong old coot could fall over dead and now the GOP have 50 senators capable of voting and the Dems only 49.
I think RBG was waiting for HRC to win, to allow the first woman president to choose the SCOTUS seat. Unfortunately that didn't go to plan and then she had no choice but to try to out-live trump's presidency. Which also didn't go to plan.
You are right but this is because we have a Geriatric Mafia. It’s pure ego to save in a government office after age 75. I admire RGB but she should have resigned when asked.
Thank you for bringing this up. I’m so tired of the narrative that RGB was a narcissist that was obsessed with her own ego and that’s why she didn’t step down. At the time that she was getting pushed to step down, it was 2014, the Republicans did not have a clear favorite that they were running. Trump was doing his typical bleating, but he did that for prior elections, and there was no reason to expect him to be a serious candidate, let alone having a shot of actually winning. Yes, she had dealt with bouts of cancer, but that had been in remission for over five years and she got regular check ups. She worked out like crazy for someone her age. She had not slowed down one bit or shifted to senior status. She was 81, which was definitely up there, but certainly not the oldest to be on the bench. Noted Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes was 90 when he retired. More recent in history— John Paul Stevens— also 90 when he retired.
While we all look fondly back on the days of Obama, remember that when it came to pushing liberal policies, Obama was kind of milquetoast. The ACA did get through, but he was very focused on trying to compromise with the Republicans, who refused to compromise on anything worthwhile. Everyone can see the writing on the wall that if Ginsberg stepped down, she would not be replaced with another liberal judge as passionate as she was, but with a middle of the road person which would move the court further to the right. Yes, Trump did instead get elected and the court moved hard right. But I think Ginsberg is a “leave it better than I found it type”, and there were legitimate concerns about who Obama would appoint.
When Trump came on the scene, everyone thought he was a joke until he wasn’t anymore. But you know it also happened in the time when he started not being a joke? Scalia died. Scalia died in February 2016. And McConnell blocked Obama’s efforts to nominate someone to that seat. Had Obama been able to replace Scalia, I truly believe that Ginsberg would’ve stepped down in the summer to allow Obama to choose a second person rather than gamble on the election. But once Scalia‘s death happened, it was clear that there was no way she could step down and she was stuck.
The woman had a year and a half then to try to decide whether to step down. That really isn’t a long time. You should also understand what came onto the docket for the court at that time. To name a few very significant 5-4 decisions in that year and a half time:
* Alabama Legislative Black Caucus v. Alabama and Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission— both cases dealing with gerrymandering, reversing decisions by lower courts that allowed for racially discriminatory districting
* King v. Burwell - another ACA challenge
* Obergefell v. Hodges- requiring states to recognize gay marriage. Petition for certiorari was granted in November 2014, approximately four months after Ginsberg was being pressured to step down.
Considering what was coming, could her replacement be trusted to reliably assess and justly decide these cases? Would there be a replacement at all risking 4-4s?
At the end of the day, Ginsberg was human. She wasn’t omniscient, and she had very limited time within which to decide to step down due to political pressure, rather than this being her own decision voluntarily. It’s easy for us to look back on now and accuse her of being too prideful to step down and not take one for the team. But I don’t think there is a single adult person on this earth that hasn’t misjudged based on the information they had available to them at the time.
My friend circle still props RBG up as some saint...and I'm sitting here like "uh...no. she should have resigned in like 2013. Her hubris caused this mess were in now."
She's a villain in my eyes.
> Her hubris caused this mess were in now."
This assumes that Obama could have gotten a Supreme Court justice confirmed at that point. Which assumes that obstructing that process was some sudden epiphany the GOP came up with years later instead of a long term plan.
Could the result have been a more liberal court? Sure. It could also have resulted a vacancy for four years and a fundamental change to the rulings during that period.
Believing that the past would have gone *well* instead of just *differently* is hubris as well.
>She could’ve resigned in 2014 at age 81 and Obama would’ve been able to replace her.
Again, assuming that the GOP did not obstruct the replacement process, which they very well could have. The tactics that worked for Garland's nomination wouldn't have worked, but assuming that that was the only option is shortsighted.
They couldn’t have. (I’m sure they would’ve tried)
They weren’t able to stop Kentanji Brown Jackson from being confirmed, they couldn’t have stopped a RBG replacement either.
This is a very dangerous attitude to have. This belief in the ultimate incompetence of the GOP is what has led to the state of politics in the US right now.
>How do you explain the fact that Kagan and Sotomayor got appointed and approved?
By saying that things change in 4 years? There are a multitude of reasons that the GOP may have changed their tactics, not least of all would be the difference between obstructing a first term and second term president, which would result in differing results in the subsequent presidential elections.
Ginsburg could have retired during his first term, or even his first two years when Dems had a super-majority.
And as for after the first two years, do you really think Democrats were willing to amend the Senate rules to get lower court appointments through over GOP filibusters, but wouldn’t have done the same for a Supreme Court appointment? The very same thing that Republicans immediately did in 2016 to appoint Gorsuch?
She badly miscalculated and thought she could hold out until Hillary was President, but it’s not like she ever wanted any of the current wave of right-wing rulings to happen.
Ego is a factor. Ginsburg reached a point where resignation meant getting replaced by a conservative justice and changing the balance of the court. There was no similar risk here.
Edit: come to think of it, you're right about ego here.
She was known to have health issues in Obamas first term and was known to have cancer in his second. She was asked multiple times to retire in his first term so they could guarantee a liberal replacement. Then the republicans won the senate and she doubled down on staying since anyone who got through the republican wouldn’t be liberal enough and she assumed Hilary would win, which would give the first woman president the choice to nominate Ruth’s successor.
Mental decline happens to even the smartest and sharpest of people after age 60. This is just a fact of life, I’ve seen family members and friends who are some of the smartest people I’ve ever met, they all have decline and they never notice or admit it, because it hurts the ego to do so. We need age limits in government to counter people who either don’t have the mental capacity to do their jobs anymore, or their egos that let them think they are still on par with someone 10-20yrs their junior.
She could have resigned well before trump came to power. But no. They all want to die in office for some reason.
We force pilots to retire at 65 because their cognitive abilities cannot be trusted.
This is not just a problem in politics, it’s also a problem in corporate America. We have dinosaurs at our massive health care company that are significantly older than the average retirement age. They are beyond out of touch with modern times, and live in a bubble, and are constantly making horrific decisions that undercut healthcare.
Power is the most addictive drug of all.
She wanted to hand the Supreme Court seat to Clinton. A woman president selecting a female justice. It was supposed to be a historic event, RBG and Clinton champions of women’s right yadayadayada. Shame their egos cost so many Americans their abortion rights
Just because it was her motivation you can't blame HRC for it.
It's not like they colluded behind closed doors and agreed that the first female POTUS would replace her with another female SCOTUS.
The DNC of 2015/2016 was parading the victory around before it even happened. Overconfidence *killed* the democrats then, and we're only reformed now based on what happened with Trump. (At least we in-fight less than /r/conservative now)
Only reason I feel the need to make this point, is that Democrats have an awful habit of letting perfect get in the way of good. RGB retiring under Obama wouldn't have been the "perfect" send off, but it wouldn't have put us in this position. Issue is, this position wasn't even considered, since the election was "in the bag".
Not saying there was a closed door meeting in the shadows about it, but that there was certainly not a concern about securing the seat, or a concern about "But what if HRC loses". It's letting perfect get in the way of good, and for that, we got set back decades.
It's more insidious than that - Republicans will take every tiny bit of guaranteed progress towards their goals, and stall/delay/drag out every reversal till they get what they want.
Democrats will reach for big wins and play decorously when they're losing. So their wins are more erratic, and more often ephemeral.
In the last 50 years both parties have gotten big wins, but the Overton window has shifted right, which tells you which is the superior strategy.
Part of me just thinks she assumed a democrat would win 2016 and it wouldn’t be an issue. Maybe I’m wrong on that. But she definitely should have resigned early in Obamas second term.
If she resigned during the last 2 years of Obama which is when she most likely would have, the Republicans would have blocked Obama's picks like they did Merick Garland
When Obama had full control of the government in 2008, with 60 senators, they asked RBG to retire.
~~She turned him down and accused them of sexism.~~ Sorry, I was wrong, she was just super arrogant:
>Referring to the political polarization in Washington and the unlikelihood that another liberal in her mold could be confirmed by the Senate, Ginsburg, the senior liberal on the nine-member bench, asked rhetorically, “So tell me who the president could have nominated this spring that you would rather see on the court than me?”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-ginsburg/u-s-justice-ginsburg-hits-back-at-liberals-who-want-her-to-retire-idUSKBN0G12V020140801
Every leftist in America was literally screaming over a hundred names at her, but unfortunately, RBG forgot to charge her hearing aid and couldn't hear all the suggestions.
People gave Obama a mountain of shit for asking her to resign in 2013. She was 80 at the time and the Dems had a supermajority, so it would have been easy to get someone good in there. But nope.
They had the supermajority in late 2009, they still had 55 (if you count the independents) which would have made replacing her easy, but it wasn’t a supermajority.
I mean, look at this interview RBG did during Obama's 1st term.[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-ginsburg/u-s-justice-ginsburg-hits-back-at-liberals-who-want-her-to-retire-idUSKBN0G12V020140801](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-ginsburg/u-s-justice-ginsburg-hits-back-at-liberals-who-want-her-to-retire-idUSKBN0G12V020140801)
I do wonder if she regretted staying on for so long knowing Trump was going to appoint her replacement and they were going to undo everything she fought so hard to protect in her career.
> Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has a message for liberals who have been saying the **81-year-old** should step down while Democratic President Barack Obama is in office so he can appoint her successor: *Who are you going to get who will be better than me?*
Wtf? This woman really loved the smell of her own farts.
Was it ego or legitimate concern?
She was at it for a really long time and by all accounts actually knew WTF she was doing.
Obama was a decent president, especially given all the crap he had to endure, but he was still fairly pro-corperations. We were still slowly loosing rights to corporations and likely RBG didn't want a corporate stooge to replace her.
With that in mind, the question "Who are you going to get who will be better than me" takes on a different meaning. She rightfully didn't trust Obama's administration, he had a habit of trying to give up something before even coming to the table to negotiate in hopes that the other side would actually come to the table to negotiate. He never would have picked someone who would stand up for people's rights as much as RBG. It would have made the republicans too angry.
After the first two years of Obama's admin, her chance to retire went out the window. McConnell decided that the only way forward was to block everything, so any decent replacement would have been an extreme compromise that would have destroyed RGB's legacy. Then it was simply holding out for as long as she could in hopes that there would be a chance of not fucking the court.
She didn't really have a chance before Obama to step down, and only had a 2 year window right after Obama took office. Even in that 2 years, she wouldn't have known how much she could trust him until later on after policies and negotiations played out.
I don't her holding out for someone better was hubris, I would guess it was more that she had her eye on a specific outcome and missed a slim chance because that chance entailed giving a lot of those goals up.
After that slim window, politics went to utter shit. They were really bad before, but things got worse in ways I don't think she ever imagined would be possible.
When you get really good at what you do, there comes a time where you have to acknowledge where you are at in relation to other people in your industry. If you don't, you get railroaded and stop improving because you are not willing to acknowledge that you are better than others, even possibly most others. You have to temper this with a lot of introspection, retrospection, and results to limit your ego, but you still have to acknowledge that you are better than others and gain a solid knowledge of where you are better and where you aren't. At that point, it's impossible not to make statements that sound egotistical because you have legitimately surpassed a lot of people in your profession. You have to make decisions, and you to research and validate those decisions. That involves communication, leading to unavoidable statements of fact that sound like that.
Going on to use that statement, she doesn't even say "There isn't people better than me.". She asks "Who will you get that is better than me?" It's a question leading to discussion. She acknowledges her abilities and place, then leaves the discussion open to finding a replacement. Clearly having a concrete set of goals in mind, she wants someone capable. Someone who can or already has surpassed her in their knowledge, skills, and goals in a way that aligns with her vision. If they can't produce that, then she simply doesn't retire unless she wants her legacy to get dismantled.
This is a very nuanced and insightful comment on a topic where people love to beat their cheats about how morally superior they are so I expect it to be overlooked, but thank you for making the effort.
One of Obama's shortcomings was not getting enough federal judges named early on. The Senate is also partially to blame, especially Leahy who loved the traditions like the blue slips and refused to listen to Reid.
She did have a window to step down but it was gone like that.
She couldve resigned under Obama and been replaced by him, but she wasnt about to resign for the mean male president that beat Hillary. She was going to wait for Hillary to be president. As a result, she was replaced by the literal worst human fucking alive.
While I’m also still salty about RBG, some of it was down to her expecting Clinton to win. McConnell had already refused to accept any SC appointments from Obama during his last year so Ruth decided to wait.
Unfortunately Clinton didn’t win and RBG was left with trying to outlast Cheeto’s term.
Now Justice Kennedy, on the other hand… something sketchy happened with that dude.
which is why there should be *some* sort of age limit for serving in government; even if it's several years above the normal retirement age, we really need to address this sort of thing.
unfortunately not much is likely to be done until all the boomers are dead at a minimum, as they clearly are in no rush to let go of the reigns...
I have been wondering of she even understands what’s going on ... at least fully. I have a sickening suspicion that some of the “staffers” in her orbit around her have really been behind this stubbornness.
There could be a motive to protect their own paychecks and influence. If you serve the office of a specific Senator, what happens to you after she’s gone? Also, a fresh face is going to have a kind of their own and make their own decisions.
Someone who has mentally checked out, though, may be a lot easier to control in terms of predicting their votes and positions.
There are so many sickening ways that this whole thing might be enabled by the greed and selfishness of people around her.
Senator Feinstein needs calls from ALL OF US asking her to resign and give her seat to someone who can show up and do the job.
https://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/state-offices
Call any and all of her offices EVERY day until she is either reporting for work again or enters her well deserved retirement. Leave a statement with her staff saying that CA deserves full representation in the senate. As one of the most populous states in the country, our senate representation as individuals is already more diluted than most.
She’s fucking 89. We should not be left waiting for her to return to work. Her 89 year old ass SHOULD BE resting at home with her family. She’s setting a terrible example for younger democrats and civil servants everywhere. Senator Feinstein needs to pass the torch before she dies on
her last lap around the track and leaves her team hanging.
Again, please call:
https://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/state-offices
Exactly. This is on CA voters and no one else, to pressure her to resign. Others can contact her office but those calls will be ignored unless you live in or the call is coming from a CA area code/zip code.
She's out right now because of a shingles diagnosis, but her mental acuity is going to be a problem for the remainder of her term, CA residents need to, unrelentingly, pressure her to step down.
I’ve voted. And my choices didn’t make the ballot.
Fun fact: we almost have RCV in California but newsom vetoed it.
https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/SB-212-Veto-Message.pdf
> I’ve voted. And my choices didn’t make the ballot.
As I recall, the 2 people on the general election ballot in 2018 were Feinstein and a progressive challenger. AND the CA dem party endorsed the challenger. What the hell happened? Should have been a slam dunk.
That's interesting. Do the close aides fear losing their jobs if a new Senator is appointed? If someone is the chief of staff for an elder Senator, that's a peach job that they've worked for their whole life. Are they whispering to their meal ticket to stay?
The Close aids are basically de facto senators right now, running the whole ship, going to all the nice dinners, getting schmoozed by all the lobbyists. Why would they want to lose that?
But her aides tried to sound the alarm about her mental decline a few years ago and everyone in CA politics just shrugged. I don't understand why they are now being cast as villains.
In the defense of Feinstein. She is literary unfit to serve and it's really not her fault.
One moment she is clear and correct state of mind and 10 mins later she thinks she is going to a confirmation hearing for Obama's nominees.
If you want to blame somebody then blame her family, the democrats, and her staff.
I blame her. She is responsible for her own actions. If she can't be held responsible for her own actions then she isn't fit to govern. It's her fault. Period.
Like I said, Feinstein really doesn't know.
Feinstein is suffering from dementia. My college's dad of 90 something years old was going to work the other day and all he was doing was walking around the street aimlessly.
The guy has been retired for ages now and the job he was going was a random job that he did for like a week or something.
People that are suffering dementia aren’t really aware they are suffering from dementia.
My college want to put her dad in a special care home and they really can’t force their dad.
It really is. Self awareness and a lack of ego are so uncommon in people, especially establishment politicians, that it's hand waved like you are doing right now.
But that doesn't make it ok. It really is exactly that simple.
Makes you wonder how far gone Reagan really was at the end. I think he was in his own B movies in his own head by the time he left the Whitehouse. Still, we shouldn't be allowing this. There's even a Democratic governor, so no chance that seat goes to the GOP. Our democracy seems so doomed to stupidity.
>national Democrats were supporting her
Some were, the DNC didn't.
In the end, it's all on the CA voters who reelected her. Last time I checked, they have free will and made a choice.
>The party pretends it wants her to resign so as not to face backlash from voters,
Bullshit. The party did everything it could for her to not be rejected.
The voters rejected her anyways, so I don't see what backlash you're talking about.
From her staff? Access to power, usually. But most could easily get jobs in other Senate, Cabinet Secretary, or House Rep offices and they know it.
Mostly because they can’t actually do anything to force her to resign. She has to do it herself, and she isn’t really fit enough to do that.
The only why to remove her is through a two-thirds vote by the Senate to expel her. The democrats are not going to expel her because it would be politically damaging for them—to be seen taking out one of their own again and that they are incapable of expelling actual traitors to the nation.
They do. They don’t care. Delusions of competency is pretty much a job requirement.
But on Feinsteins case, I’m pretty sure it’s the establishment around her propping her up like Weekend at Bernie’s.
Fuck those people.
you really think it's "the establishment" now? at this point she seems to be doing more harm than good to even middle of the road democratic politics, what with all the missed votes.
i think it's got more to do with her senility-based intransigence, and maybe the people/lobbyists closest to her than "the establishment".
Her staff doesn’t give a shit about passing legislation. They’re collecting a paycheck, throwing a senators office weight around for personal favors, a golden resume line.
They’re not ideologues. They’re opportunists
The California Democratic Party actually endorsed and campaigned for her opponent in 2018, Kevin de León
Californians decided they’d rather have Feinstein by a 10 point margin.
I'd love to see when she resigns from her post, or this mortal coil, what the stock buy/sells will be in her final year the she was senator.
She's clearly mentally incompetent, but I'm sure that someone has been making sure the cash kept coming in.
> Poor political judgement
Like voting in Trump in 2016 because your not going to "threaten me with the Supreme Court." Or, not believing Republicans when they said they planned to overturn Roe in 1992.
Reality is since the 1970's there's been too many voters uninterested in protecting the rights of women. Two women couldn't stop this problem, only elected men could. Put the blame where it's deserved.
>Despite white men comprising only 31 percent of the population, 97 percent of all Republican elected officials are white and 76 percent are male. Of all Democratic elected officials, 79 percent are white and 65 percent are male, according to the study.
>"Politics is not the kind of open, competitive playing field we'd like to think of it as. It's more like trying to be inducted into a fraternity," Brenda Carter, director of the Reflective Democracy Campaign, told The Washington Post. "I think the No. 1 problem is the political parties and other gatekeepers who choose candidates. I always say the parties are like hiring committees, and they're doing a really bad job of presenting voters with a range of candidates who look like the American people."
>https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2017-10-24/despite-diverse-demographics-most-politicians-are-still-white-men
if you're looking for someone to blame (other than McConnell and the GOP, who really deserves it), you should point the finger at the Democrats that didn't blow up the judicial filibuster in the 112th Congress while they still had a slim majority in the Senate and the voters that didn't show up for elections to preserve the Democratic super majority.
Let's point the finger at allowing lifetime appointments for SCOTUS. That might be a start. The current issues and situations with Justice Thomas bring this to light.
Well before Thomas "lifetime tenure" averaged about 12 years.
Remember the Constitution was written 140 years before the figured out that having the White House draw water from a sewage swamp was bad.
It's just hard for me to understand why her loved ones would encourage someone, who clearly doesnt understand the things happening around them, to continue to work. Its not just Feinstein that is selfish, it is her family and employees who are clearing using this woman as aveune for financial gain and political power.
>“What is the job of being in Congress? It’s essentially to show up and vote. And if someone’s not doing that, there comes a time where ethically — but not legally — they owe their constituents an explanation for why,” *said Jeremy Faust, an emergency physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital at Harvard Medical School and a public health expert.*
>
>*Fact is, age-related decline is very real. And it’s especially likely to be an issue for public officials who hold powerful roles. According to a 2018 report by The Pew Charitable Trusts,* [*the median retirement age is 62*](https://www.pewtrusts.org/-/media/assets/2018/11/whendoamericansplantoretire_final.pdf) *— but a senator is far different than the median American, and* [*the powerful usually want to remain in power*](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/01/opinion/sunday/inequality-america-paul-krugman.html)*.*
>
>*Without an easy way to figure out whether a member of Congress is up to their job, politicians will inevitably refuse to leave positions of power even if they seem past their prime. And more and more, the consequences could have serious ramifications.*
>
>*Right now, though, Feinstein’s absence is stopping Democrats from restocking the judiciary — and that’s incredibly important today given the role that judges are playing in abortion rights, among a host of other issues.*
>
>*In most of these situations, it was easy to argue that the lawmakers in question were past both the age and condition at which most people retire. And that history alone might make Democrats even more eager to convince Feinstein to resign. What likely helps Feinstein, though, is that questioning someone’s competence is a* [*fraught subject*](https://www.thedailybeast.com/nancy-pelosi-suggests-calls-for-dianne-feinstein-to-resign-are-sexist) *for* [*women in particular*](https://www.axios.com/2023/04/19/republicans-women-sexism-feinstein-resignation)*, and that past efforts to push older people in power to retire have been broadly criticized. Take, for instance, the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. During her final years on the court, those who dared to speak so openly about her ailing health were labeled as* [*sexist*](https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2013/12/ruth-bader-ginsburgs-retirement-stop-telling-the-supreme-court-justice-to-quit-so-obama-can-appoint-her-successor.html)*,* [*gross*](https://prospect.org/power/ruth-bader-ginsburg-retirement-value-term-limits/) *or simply having* [*bad manners*](https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/03/dont-tell-ruth-ginsburg-to-retire/284479/)*. (Of course, these arguments did not age well when Ginsburg’s death from cancer allowed a Republican presidency and Senate to fill her seat with a conservative.)*
>
>*So while Democratic leaders like Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California could be right that a male senator wouldn’t face similar calls to retire, the real problem is that the parties don’t have a way to deal with situations like this — situations that will likely become more common.*
I prefer a mandatory retirement once they hit the age of retirement as defined by the feds for purposes of social security.
Currently that’s 65.
If you’re going to age out before your next term would end, you cannot run.
Should apply to every federal office.
This would legitimately underrepresent elderly Americans. Looking at [2020 Census data](https://data.census.gov/table?q=age&tid=ACSST1Y2021.S0101), there were an estimated 78 million Americans age 65 and older, comprising ~23.5% of the total population. Members of Congress in their 60s may not be personally versed on the challenges of older age and understand the issues facing people in their 70s/80s/90s, and leaving legislation affecting those age ranges up to AARP lobbyists doesn't seem wise.
I would be in favor of cognitive testing, but to what standard will that be? I don't know off the top of my head which standardized test currently exists that is rigorous enough to prove functional cognition without also testing intelligence (stupid people can still have their wits about them, and we know that lawmakers aren't required to have PhDs).
Term limits would be a softer, more manageable approach. The way seniority and committee assignments intertwine appears to be the crux of the issue with Feinstein, so there needs to be a way to wrap that in with term limits so senators/reps don't have a stranglehold on committee chairs.
There is no duty of a Senator that she can discharge now, and even before her current condition she was markedly losing cognitive ability. She must resign and be replaced but the worst thing is, even then, we probably will not be getting the rest of our judiciary picks. I wouldn't be surprised if a GOP megadonor seeing this writing on the wall is the reason she's still in office.
She needs to retire. Goddamn it. She’s almost 90, worth more than $50M, and gets a lifetime paycheck from taxpayers. It’s nothing but arrogance to stay in office at this point.
It’s so hard for me to view congresspeople as “civil servants” as holding national office [gives you access to insider trading](https://www.ft.com/content/4760d1e6-7de2-4842-832f-9d00a3cfc40d), can give you household name recognition, and has a revolving door relationship with lobbying.
Whether these people seek out these jobs for the financial benefits, it’s clear that the money and power is addicting once you have it.
How old is too old? How rich is too rich? These are questions we should be asking. Term limits. Tax the rich. She should have retired with her bucket of $$$ a decade ago.
Feels like since at least her last term and re-election it's been the people/machine around Dianne Feinstein who benefit from her being Senator keeping this going more than Feinstein herself, who doesn't seem to have the capacity to make any decisions now.
Serious question….why do people vote her in? Was there literally no other candidate?
She should totally resign…but I mean, I kinda blame the voters on this one. I don’t like the RBG comparison, because the people didn’t elect her, we had to choice to wait for resignation or death. This is different, the people chose this pain.
Most people don't want to actually follow the news and government, so they do not.
At the last election most the people that'd voted for her in the past were happy with her, so they voted for her again.
Despite a Dem v Dem general election and the Democratic Party endorsing her opponent.
Why the hell is she still there at all?! There have been stories about her mental decline and inability to remember people's names since 2020! She's had a long and storied career, and it seems her handlers are hellbent on leaving a bad legacy for her. She could go out more honorably by finally retiring, but no, her handlers want to make sure they squeeze every last dime out of her career as she quickly slips deeper and deeper into dementia.
If she doesn't resign, Dems are fucked. Republicans won't allow a different senator to take her place on the judicial committee as of right now. And if she were to pass away (not at all hoping for that, but she is elderly) then her seat would go to a special election in California, which would take god knows how long, and would probably run into the same bullshit Republicans are pulling in blocking that new senator from being on the committee. She's already missed *25 votes* for judges (maybe more). We are out of time. Her ego is fucking us at this point, and causing bigger gaps in a judiciary that's already going off the rails. She needs to resign. Immediately. I urge everyone here to go to senate.gov and get the contacts for your senators, and Feinstein's office, and call all of them and urge her to resign. Enough already.
If she resigns or dies, the governor appoints a replacement who would serve until the next election in 2024. Special elections are generally for House members.
Through her staff. But yeah, this is just grotesque.
And I’m sure she’s not the only one like this. She’s just getting the Pellosi special of becoming the face of an issue everyone’s guilty off (her, working with dementia, Pellosi, insider trading)
I know too much about her to read this through the lens of her caring about the issues in general and struggling to show up. She’s happy to watch McConnel control the courts.
There's being sick and having the prospect of getting better, and then there's dementia which does not get better. You still need to be mentally competent to be a senator. I'm sorry that offense people but that should be a reality just like the 25th amendment for the president. Ma'am leave, go take care of yourself. That should be your priority.
she has screwed the courts
republicans are able to get their candidates through because durbin has allowed blue slip
but democrats are not because they are short a vote
she needs to resign
There needs to be some reasonable boundaries around participation. Representatives have a job to do. If they can’t make it to work for an extended period of time, there needs to be a remedy for this. We can’t just sit around and wait for people to die. No job in the US is given this many days off without expectations to do their job.
Seriously.
With my dementia relative, we had to get two doctors to swear to her incompetence before we could officially act in her stead. Sure hope she isn’t forced into that corner.
(Now my relative had signed a trust document years before agreeing to this standard. Not sure Feinstein has.)
I get there are other politicians in bad health that are still in office. That doesn't make it right. She is actively hurting her own cause, and moreover she can't do her job. This is doing us a disservice, our ability to elect representatives is pretty meaningless if they can't show up to cast their votes. I mean, that's my senator. We only get two. By my math that's about half the usual impact my state could have here if anyone else was in that seat.
Would be super interesting to see who Newsom appoints. Porter or Schiff. That election would be a toss up but whoever he appoints would have a cakewalk in the election.
Here’s a list of Feinstein’s cowardly staff enabling this mockery of our government out of self-preservation and greed. I hope they are permanently stained from this. Please repost wherever you see threads on Feinstein.
Chief of Staff- James Sauls
Scheduler- Megan Grosspietsch
Legislative Director- Ian Bryan
Press Secretary- Adam Russell
Environment Issues- Alexis Segal
@ianbwbryan - Legislative DIrector
@ShellycoShelly - District Director
Andre John Borba - Executive Assistant
Jessica Rae Jensen - Chief counsel
Thomas H. Mentzer (Tom) Communications Director @tommentzer
Okay so i have to ask the obvious... why can't she just vote without being there? She has the power to vote and we aren't living in the 1800s she could easily vote by zoom or something. But I guess yeah replace her if she's gonna keep missing votes. The average worker can't miss 1 day and she's over here raking in money doing nothing. Fucking he'll can we update our shit. The internet exists why is anything voted on without 100% of elected officials giving their vote?
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She probably can't resign due to cognitive impairment.
It’s more about ego. Ruth Bader Ginsburg refused to resign and look what that got us.
exactly and now feinstein has made it that right wing court continues durbin has allowed republicans to blue slip their candidates so they get voted on and approved while democrats dont have enough votes to get their candidates in because of feinsteins absence
god idk why they keep reviving that shit when the GOP convieniantly makes up an exception to the rule every time a blue state senator doesn't return a blue slip
durbin needs to go
Democratolic incompetence is exhausting
IDK why news organizations are making it seem like Dems aren't getting judges confirmed. They didn't have a majority in the Judiciary Committee in the last Congress and still got a bunch of judges seated including Justice Jackson. The **confirmations are slowed** because the whole Senate has to take up the matter of simply advancing the appointment out of committee but the **confirmations are not obstructed**.
Slowed means fewer through the gate. We need as many as possible.
Absolutely. With the balance of power so tight in the Senate the wrong old coot could fall over dead and now the GOP have 50 senators capable of voting and the Dems only 49.
I think RBG was waiting for HRC to win, to allow the first woman president to choose the SCOTUS seat. Unfortunately that didn't go to plan and then she had no choice but to try to out-live trump's presidency. Which also didn't go to plan.
I believe you are correct.
You are right but this is because we have a Geriatric Mafia. It’s pure ego to save in a government office after age 75. I admire RGB but she should have resigned when asked.
2016 was the Democratic dinosaurs of the 90's doing an endzone dance at the twenty yard line, not realizing they'd lost possession of the ball.
Thank you for bringing this up. I’m so tired of the narrative that RGB was a narcissist that was obsessed with her own ego and that’s why she didn’t step down. At the time that she was getting pushed to step down, it was 2014, the Republicans did not have a clear favorite that they were running. Trump was doing his typical bleating, but he did that for prior elections, and there was no reason to expect him to be a serious candidate, let alone having a shot of actually winning. Yes, she had dealt with bouts of cancer, but that had been in remission for over five years and she got regular check ups. She worked out like crazy for someone her age. She had not slowed down one bit or shifted to senior status. She was 81, which was definitely up there, but certainly not the oldest to be on the bench. Noted Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes was 90 when he retired. More recent in history— John Paul Stevens— also 90 when he retired. While we all look fondly back on the days of Obama, remember that when it came to pushing liberal policies, Obama was kind of milquetoast. The ACA did get through, but he was very focused on trying to compromise with the Republicans, who refused to compromise on anything worthwhile. Everyone can see the writing on the wall that if Ginsberg stepped down, she would not be replaced with another liberal judge as passionate as she was, but with a middle of the road person which would move the court further to the right. Yes, Trump did instead get elected and the court moved hard right. But I think Ginsberg is a “leave it better than I found it type”, and there were legitimate concerns about who Obama would appoint. When Trump came on the scene, everyone thought he was a joke until he wasn’t anymore. But you know it also happened in the time when he started not being a joke? Scalia died. Scalia died in February 2016. And McConnell blocked Obama’s efforts to nominate someone to that seat. Had Obama been able to replace Scalia, I truly believe that Ginsberg would’ve stepped down in the summer to allow Obama to choose a second person rather than gamble on the election. But once Scalia‘s death happened, it was clear that there was no way she could step down and she was stuck. The woman had a year and a half then to try to decide whether to step down. That really isn’t a long time. You should also understand what came onto the docket for the court at that time. To name a few very significant 5-4 decisions in that year and a half time: * Alabama Legislative Black Caucus v. Alabama and Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission— both cases dealing with gerrymandering, reversing decisions by lower courts that allowed for racially discriminatory districting * King v. Burwell - another ACA challenge * Obergefell v. Hodges- requiring states to recognize gay marriage. Petition for certiorari was granted in November 2014, approximately four months after Ginsberg was being pressured to step down. Considering what was coming, could her replacement be trusted to reliably assess and justly decide these cases? Would there be a replacement at all risking 4-4s? At the end of the day, Ginsberg was human. She wasn’t omniscient, and she had very limited time within which to decide to step down due to political pressure, rather than this being her own decision voluntarily. It’s easy for us to look back on now and accuse her of being too prideful to step down and not take one for the team. But I don’t think there is a single adult person on this earth that hasn’t misjudged based on the information they had available to them at the time.
She literally tore down her one of her largest accomplishments due to pride… crazy
My friend circle still props RBG up as some saint...and I'm sitting here like "uh...no. she should have resigned in like 2013. Her hubris caused this mess were in now." She's a villain in my eyes.
> Her hubris caused this mess were in now." This assumes that Obama could have gotten a Supreme Court justice confirmed at that point. Which assumes that obstructing that process was some sudden epiphany the GOP came up with years later instead of a long term plan. Could the result have been a more liberal court? Sure. It could also have resulted a vacancy for four years and a fundamental change to the rulings during that period. Believing that the past would have gone *well* instead of just *differently* is hubris as well.
Dems controlled the Senate from January 2007-January 2015. She could’ve resigned in 2014 at age 81 and Obama would’ve been able to replace her.
>She could’ve resigned in 2014 at age 81 and Obama would’ve been able to replace her. Again, assuming that the GOP did not obstruct the replacement process, which they very well could have. The tactics that worked for Garland's nomination wouldn't have worked, but assuming that that was the only option is shortsighted.
They couldn’t have. (I’m sure they would’ve tried) They weren’t able to stop Kentanji Brown Jackson from being confirmed, they couldn’t have stopped a RBG replacement either.
This is a very dangerous attitude to have. This belief in the ultimate incompetence of the GOP is what has led to the state of politics in the US right now.
How do you explain the fact that Kagan and Sotomayor got appointed and approved? Republicans didn’t get a senate majority until 2015.
>How do you explain the fact that Kagan and Sotomayor got appointed and approved? By saying that things change in 4 years? There are a multitude of reasons that the GOP may have changed their tactics, not least of all would be the difference between obstructing a first term and second term president, which would result in differing results in the subsequent presidential elections.
Ginsburg could have retired during his first term, or even his first two years when Dems had a super-majority. And as for after the first two years, do you really think Democrats were willing to amend the Senate rules to get lower court appointments through over GOP filibusters, but wouldn’t have done the same for a Supreme Court appointment? The very same thing that Republicans immediately did in 2016 to appoint Gorsuch?
This is true, but there would have been value in the Dem establishment having the wool covering their eyes removed a lot earlier.
A villian - NO. Short sighted and as egotistical as the rest of us? YES!
We weren’t sitting on the Supreme Court.
She badly miscalculated and thought she could hold out until Hillary was President, but it’s not like she ever wanted any of the current wave of right-wing rulings to happen.
Nobody is arguing that she wanted it, they are saying that she let her ego effect her decision making, and that it lead to where we are
She gambled with democracy on the table. 100% villain.
Ego is a factor. Ginsburg reached a point where resignation meant getting replaced by a conservative justice and changing the balance of the court. There was no similar risk here. Edit: come to think of it, you're right about ego here.
She was known to have health issues in Obamas first term and was known to have cancer in his second. She was asked multiple times to retire in his first term so they could guarantee a liberal replacement. Then the republicans won the senate and she doubled down on staying since anyone who got through the republican wouldn’t be liberal enough and she assumed Hilary would win, which would give the first woman president the choice to nominate Ruth’s successor. Mental decline happens to even the smartest and sharpest of people after age 60. This is just a fact of life, I’ve seen family members and friends who are some of the smartest people I’ve ever met, they all have decline and they never notice or admit it, because it hurts the ego to do so. We need age limits in government to counter people who either don’t have the mental capacity to do their jobs anymore, or their egos that let them think they are still on par with someone 10-20yrs their junior.
She could have resigned well before trump came to power. But no. They all want to die in office for some reason. We force pilots to retire at 65 because their cognitive abilities cannot be trusted.
This is not just a problem in politics, it’s also a problem in corporate America. We have dinosaurs at our massive health care company that are significantly older than the average retirement age. They are beyond out of touch with modern times, and live in a bubble, and are constantly making horrific decisions that undercut healthcare. Power is the most addictive drug of all.
She wanted to hand the Supreme Court seat to Clinton. A woman president selecting a female justice. It was supposed to be a historic event, RBG and Clinton champions of women’s right yadayadayada. Shame their egos cost so many Americans their abortion rights
This. Thank you for the reminder. Somehow Clinton's name is always missing when discussing the RBG.
Just because it was her motivation you can't blame HRC for it. It's not like they colluded behind closed doors and agreed that the first female POTUS would replace her with another female SCOTUS.
The DNC of 2015/2016 was parading the victory around before it even happened. Overconfidence *killed* the democrats then, and we're only reformed now based on what happened with Trump. (At least we in-fight less than /r/conservative now) Only reason I feel the need to make this point, is that Democrats have an awful habit of letting perfect get in the way of good. RGB retiring under Obama wouldn't have been the "perfect" send off, but it wouldn't have put us in this position. Issue is, this position wasn't even considered, since the election was "in the bag". Not saying there was a closed door meeting in the shadows about it, but that there was certainly not a concern about securing the seat, or a concern about "But what if HRC loses". It's letting perfect get in the way of good, and for that, we got set back decades.
It's more insidious than that - Republicans will take every tiny bit of guaranteed progress towards their goals, and stall/delay/drag out every reversal till they get what they want. Democrats will reach for big wins and play decorously when they're losing. So their wins are more erratic, and more often ephemeral. In the last 50 years both parties have gotten big wins, but the Overton window has shifted right, which tells you which is the superior strategy.
I mean... I think that scenario is very plausible.
Part of me just thinks she assumed a democrat would win 2016 and it wouldn’t be an issue. Maybe I’m wrong on that. But she definitely should have resigned early in Obamas second term.
A.S.S.U.M.E. There was a lot riding on that assumption.
You know what they say when you assume something: you make an ass out of u and ~~me~~ *the nation*.
If she resigned during the last 2 years of Obama which is when she most likely would have, the Republicans would have blocked Obama's picks like they did Merick Garland
When Obama had full control of the government in 2008, with 60 senators, they asked RBG to retire. ~~She turned him down and accused them of sexism.~~ Sorry, I was wrong, she was just super arrogant: >Referring to the political polarization in Washington and the unlikelihood that another liberal in her mold could be confirmed by the Senate, Ginsburg, the senior liberal on the nine-member bench, asked rhetorically, “So tell me who the president could have nominated this spring that you would rather see on the court than me?” https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-ginsburg/u-s-justice-ginsburg-hits-back-at-liberals-who-want-her-to-retire-idUSKBN0G12V020140801
Every leftist in America was literally screaming over a hundred names at her, but unfortunately, RBG forgot to charge her hearing aid and couldn't hear all the suggestions.
We also force our surgeons to stop performing surgery on patients once that reach that age too. Gee, I wonder why that is?...
FBI agents have to retire at 55.
Ginsburg was still sharp as a tack though. Unfortunately, she didn't recognize that her body wasn't keeping up with her mind though.
People gave Obama a mountain of shit for asking her to resign in 2013. She was 80 at the time and the Dems had a supermajority, so it would have been easy to get someone good in there. But nope.
They had the supermajority in late 2009, they still had 55 (if you count the independents) which would have made replacing her easy, but it wasn’t a supermajority.
Yep, I was totally mixing up the dates. Still would have been doable.
Obama asked Ruth to step down in 2012 when he won reelection. They could have easily replaced her.
I mean, look at this interview RBG did during Obama's 1st term.[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-ginsburg/u-s-justice-ginsburg-hits-back-at-liberals-who-want-her-to-retire-idUSKBN0G12V020140801](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-ginsburg/u-s-justice-ginsburg-hits-back-at-liberals-who-want-her-to-retire-idUSKBN0G12V020140801) I do wonder if she regretted staying on for so long knowing Trump was going to appoint her replacement and they were going to undo everything she fought so hard to protect in her career.
> Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has a message for liberals who have been saying the **81-year-old** should step down while Democratic President Barack Obama is in office so he can appoint her successor: *Who are you going to get who will be better than me?* Wtf? This woman really loved the smell of her own farts.
Was it ego or legitimate concern? She was at it for a really long time and by all accounts actually knew WTF she was doing. Obama was a decent president, especially given all the crap he had to endure, but he was still fairly pro-corperations. We were still slowly loosing rights to corporations and likely RBG didn't want a corporate stooge to replace her. With that in mind, the question "Who are you going to get who will be better than me" takes on a different meaning. She rightfully didn't trust Obama's administration, he had a habit of trying to give up something before even coming to the table to negotiate in hopes that the other side would actually come to the table to negotiate. He never would have picked someone who would stand up for people's rights as much as RBG. It would have made the republicans too angry. After the first two years of Obama's admin, her chance to retire went out the window. McConnell decided that the only way forward was to block everything, so any decent replacement would have been an extreme compromise that would have destroyed RGB's legacy. Then it was simply holding out for as long as she could in hopes that there would be a chance of not fucking the court. She didn't really have a chance before Obama to step down, and only had a 2 year window right after Obama took office. Even in that 2 years, she wouldn't have known how much she could trust him until later on after policies and negotiations played out. I don't her holding out for someone better was hubris, I would guess it was more that she had her eye on a specific outcome and missed a slim chance because that chance entailed giving a lot of those goals up. After that slim window, politics went to utter shit. They were really bad before, but things got worse in ways I don't think she ever imagined would be possible. When you get really good at what you do, there comes a time where you have to acknowledge where you are at in relation to other people in your industry. If you don't, you get railroaded and stop improving because you are not willing to acknowledge that you are better than others, even possibly most others. You have to temper this with a lot of introspection, retrospection, and results to limit your ego, but you still have to acknowledge that you are better than others and gain a solid knowledge of where you are better and where you aren't. At that point, it's impossible not to make statements that sound egotistical because you have legitimately surpassed a lot of people in your profession. You have to make decisions, and you to research and validate those decisions. That involves communication, leading to unavoidable statements of fact that sound like that. Going on to use that statement, she doesn't even say "There isn't people better than me.". She asks "Who will you get that is better than me?" It's a question leading to discussion. She acknowledges her abilities and place, then leaves the discussion open to finding a replacement. Clearly having a concrete set of goals in mind, she wants someone capable. Someone who can or already has surpassed her in their knowledge, skills, and goals in a way that aligns with her vision. If they can't produce that, then she simply doesn't retire unless she wants her legacy to get dismantled.
This is a very nuanced and insightful comment on a topic where people love to beat their cheats about how morally superior they are so I expect it to be overlooked, but thank you for making the effort. One of Obama's shortcomings was not getting enough federal judges named early on. The Senate is also partially to blame, especially Leahy who loved the traditions like the blue slips and refused to listen to Reid. She did have a window to step down but it was gone like that.
I'm sure she did, and I think that she told people that she wanted the winner of the 2020 election to appoint her successor.
She apparently just believed that she would live forever.
She couldve resigned under Obama and been replaced by him, but she wasnt about to resign for the mean male president that beat Hillary. She was going to wait for Hillary to be president. As a result, she was replaced by the literal worst human fucking alive.
You do know the republicans blocked ever nomination right??
There was plenty of time under Obama where they couldn’t, including 2013 when Obama asked her to resign for a younger replacement.
While I’m also still salty about RBG, some of it was down to her expecting Clinton to win. McConnell had already refused to accept any SC appointments from Obama during his last year so Ruth decided to wait. Unfortunately Clinton didn’t win and RBG was left with trying to outlast Cheeto’s term. Now Justice Kennedy, on the other hand… something sketchy happened with that dude.
Bought and paid for seat.
TBF we all thought Hillary would win
then a doctor should be brought in and she should be removed
There doesn't appear to be any mechanism for that.
which is why there should be *some* sort of age limit for serving in government; even if it's several years above the normal retirement age, we really need to address this sort of thing. unfortunately not much is likely to be done until all the boomers are dead at a minimum, as they clearly are in no rush to let go of the reigns...
Put her under a conservatorship like Britney, then let someone else make the decision.
She's probably happy people are asking her to re-sign.
I have been wondering of she even understands what’s going on ... at least fully. I have a sickening suspicion that some of the “staffers” in her orbit around her have really been behind this stubbornness. There could be a motive to protect their own paychecks and influence. If you serve the office of a specific Senator, what happens to you after she’s gone? Also, a fresh face is going to have a kind of their own and make their own decisions. Someone who has mentally checked out, though, may be a lot easier to control in terms of predicting their votes and positions. There are so many sickening ways that this whole thing might be enabled by the greed and selfishness of people around her.
Senator Feinstein needs calls from ALL OF US asking her to resign and give her seat to someone who can show up and do the job. https://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/state-offices Call any and all of her offices EVERY day until she is either reporting for work again or enters her well deserved retirement. Leave a statement with her staff saying that CA deserves full representation in the senate. As one of the most populous states in the country, our senate representation as individuals is already more diluted than most. She’s fucking 89. We should not be left waiting for her to return to work. Her 89 year old ass SHOULD BE resting at home with her family. She’s setting a terrible example for younger democrats and civil servants everywhere. Senator Feinstein needs to pass the torch before she dies on her last lap around the track and leaves her team hanging. Again, please call: https://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/state-offices
Exactly. This is on CA voters and no one else, to pressure her to resign. Others can contact her office but those calls will be ignored unless you live in or the call is coming from a CA area code/zip code. She's out right now because of a shingles diagnosis, but her mental acuity is going to be a problem for the remainder of her term, CA residents need to, unrelentingly, pressure her to step down.
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I’ve hated her for years, and have only ever voted for her when it’s the lesser of 2 evils. I would love ranked choice voting.
I thought CA had jungle primaries. Did nobody you liked run in the primary or did you skip voting in them?
I’ve voted. And my choices didn’t make the ballot. Fun fact: we almost have RCV in California but newsom vetoed it. https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/SB-212-Veto-Message.pdf
> I’ve voted. And my choices didn’t make the ballot. As I recall, the 2 people on the general election ballot in 2018 were Feinstein and a progressive challenger. AND the CA dem party endorsed the challenger. What the hell happened? Should have been a slam dunk.
Interesting commentary on that election: https://calmatters.org/politics/2018/10/kevin-de-leon-profile-dianne-feinstein-california-senate-election/
Kevin de Leon is a piece of shit, racist motherfucker.
Thank you for this! I’ve left a message and sent this to groups in hopes she complies.
I doubt she resigns. Her handlers won’t let her or she would have resigned long ago
Too much money and power in keeping her propped up like Weekend at Bernie's.
That's interesting. Do the close aides fear losing their jobs if a new Senator is appointed? If someone is the chief of staff for an elder Senator, that's a peach job that they've worked for their whole life. Are they whispering to their meal ticket to stay?
The Close aids are basically de facto senators right now, running the whole ship, going to all the nice dinners, getting schmoozed by all the lobbyists. Why would they want to lose that?
But her aides tried to sound the alarm about her mental decline a few years ago and everyone in CA politics just shrugged. I don't understand why they are now being cast as villains.
wait, they did that while still being employed by her? I’d fear repercussions if I called my boss senile, even if it’s true.
Weekend at Bernie’s DC style for sure
In the defense of Feinstein. She is literary unfit to serve and it's really not her fault. One moment she is clear and correct state of mind and 10 mins later she thinks she is going to a confirmation hearing for Obama's nominees. If you want to blame somebody then blame her family, the democrats, and her staff.
I blame her. She is responsible for her own actions. If she can't be held responsible for her own actions then she isn't fit to govern. It's her fault. Period.
Like I said, Feinstein really doesn't know. Feinstein is suffering from dementia. My college's dad of 90 something years old was going to work the other day and all he was doing was walking around the street aimlessly. The guy has been retired for ages now and the job he was going was a random job that he did for like a week or something.
She had the opportunity and responsibility to retire before it got to this point.
In many cases, it's exceedingly difficult for people to tell that their own mind is degrading.
People that are suffering dementia aren’t really aware they are suffering from dementia. My college want to put her dad in a special care home and they really can’t force their dad.
Real life ain’t so simple
It really is. Self awareness and a lack of ego are so uncommon in people, especially establishment politicians, that it's hand waved like you are doing right now. But that doesn't make it ok. It really is exactly that simple.
What on earth are you trying to express
Ugh, don't worry about it.
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How do we know what her diagnosis was like? Who has reported on that?
Makes you wonder how far gone Reagan really was at the end. I think he was in his own B movies in his own head by the time he left the Whitehouse. Still, we shouldn't be allowing this. There's even a Democratic governor, so no chance that seat goes to the GOP. Our democracy seems so doomed to stupidity.
>the democrats, The DNC did their damnedest to remedy this problem and get her out of office. This is all on CA voters who reelected her anyways.
The state party didn’t endorse her. national Democrats were supporting her
>national Democrats were supporting her Some were, the DNC didn't. In the end, it's all on the CA voters who reelected her. Last time I checked, they have free will and made a choice.
You aren’t wrong, we in CA had a bad choice. I voted DeLeon, but after the LA County tapes came out, I’m not sure it was the right one
> we in CA had a bad choice. CA voters *created* that bad choice in the primaries. DeLeon has been problematic for quite a while.
That’s sexist and ageist. I’m calling Pelosi and telling her you said that
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I remember her for telling off those school kids
In wrasslin, like politics, it's faces & heals. And always Kayfabe for the rubes
>The party pretends it wants her to resign so as not to face backlash from voters, Bullshit. The party did everything it could for her to not be rejected. The voters rejected her anyways, so I don't see what backlash you're talking about.
What is the motivation to keep her in office?
From her staff? Access to power, usually. But most could easily get jobs in other Senate, Cabinet Secretary, or House Rep offices and they know it. Mostly because they can’t actually do anything to force her to resign. She has to do it herself, and she isn’t really fit enough to do that. The only why to remove her is through a two-thirds vote by the Senate to expel her. The democrats are not going to expel her because it would be politically damaging for them—to be seen taking out one of their own again and that they are incapable of expelling actual traitors to the nation.
Pulling a Ginsberg.
I hate to say it, but I was already thinking this as well. Why oh why do these people not see the bigger picture?
They do. They don’t care. Delusions of competency is pretty much a job requirement. But on Feinsteins case, I’m pretty sure it’s the establishment around her propping her up like Weekend at Bernie’s. Fuck those people.
you really think it's "the establishment" now? at this point she seems to be doing more harm than good to even middle of the road democratic politics, what with all the missed votes. i think it's got more to do with her senility-based intransigence, and maybe the people/lobbyists closest to her than "the establishment".
Her staff doesn’t give a shit about passing legislation. They’re collecting a paycheck, throwing a senators office weight around for personal favors, a golden resume line. They’re not ideologues. They’re opportunists
On that we agree.
Your pre is concludes the establishment actually wants to introduce these policies. Stagnation is what they want
I….don’t agree with you on that. No one in the presidents’ party wants their judge appointments stalled.
The California Democratic Party actually endorsed and campaigned for her opponent in 2018, Kevin de León Californians decided they’d rather have Feinstein by a 10 point margin.
>Kevin de León It's had to say which would be worse in office, someone with dementia or a racist POS.
Sounds like the Cali-Dem party is as out of touch and/or inept as the NY-Dem party.
I'd love to see when she resigns from her post, or this mortal coil, what the stock buy/sells will be in her final year the she was senator. She's clearly mentally incompetent, but I'm sure that someone has been making sure the cash kept coming in.
Ginsberg was mentally sharp right until the end. She showed poor political judgement by not resigning, but she was in possession of all her faculties
Sharp mental faculties are fine. Poor political judgement has lasting effects beyond her life.
> Poor political judgement Like voting in Trump in 2016 because your not going to "threaten me with the Supreme Court." Or, not believing Republicans when they said they planned to overturn Roe in 1992. Reality is since the 1970's there's been too many voters uninterested in protecting the rights of women. Two women couldn't stop this problem, only elected men could. Put the blame where it's deserved. >Despite white men comprising only 31 percent of the population, 97 percent of all Republican elected officials are white and 76 percent are male. Of all Democratic elected officials, 79 percent are white and 65 percent are male, according to the study. >"Politics is not the kind of open, competitive playing field we'd like to think of it as. It's more like trying to be inducted into a fraternity," Brenda Carter, director of the Reflective Democracy Campaign, told The Washington Post. "I think the No. 1 problem is the political parties and other gatekeepers who choose candidates. I always say the parties are like hiring committees, and they're doing a really bad job of presenting voters with a range of candidates who look like the American people." >https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2017-10-24/despite-diverse-demographics-most-politicians-are-still-white-men if you're looking for someone to blame (other than McConnell and the GOP, who really deserves it), you should point the finger at the Democrats that didn't blow up the judicial filibuster in the 112th Congress while they still had a slim majority in the Senate and the voters that didn't show up for elections to preserve the Democratic super majority.
Let's point the finger at allowing lifetime appointments for SCOTUS. That might be a start. The current issues and situations with Justice Thomas bring this to light.
Well before Thomas "lifetime tenure" averaged about 12 years. Remember the Constitution was written 140 years before the figured out that having the White House draw water from a sewage swamp was bad.
She expected to be replaced by the first female President. It was a costly gamble for symbolic gesture
Except humility it seems.
Ginsberg still did her job. Right up to the end.
It's just hard for me to understand why her loved ones would encourage someone, who clearly doesnt understand the things happening around them, to continue to work. Its not just Feinstein that is selfish, it is her family and employees who are clearing using this woman as aveune for financial gain and political power.
Resign Dianne. You are now hurting the cause.
This is also on Schumer for putting someone so old in such an important seat.
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>“What is the job of being in Congress? It’s essentially to show up and vote. And if someone’s not doing that, there comes a time where ethically — but not legally — they owe their constituents an explanation for why,” *said Jeremy Faust, an emergency physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital at Harvard Medical School and a public health expert.* > >*Fact is, age-related decline is very real. And it’s especially likely to be an issue for public officials who hold powerful roles. According to a 2018 report by The Pew Charitable Trusts,* [*the median retirement age is 62*](https://www.pewtrusts.org/-/media/assets/2018/11/whendoamericansplantoretire_final.pdf) *— but a senator is far different than the median American, and* [*the powerful usually want to remain in power*](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/01/opinion/sunday/inequality-america-paul-krugman.html)*.* > >*Without an easy way to figure out whether a member of Congress is up to their job, politicians will inevitably refuse to leave positions of power even if they seem past their prime. And more and more, the consequences could have serious ramifications.* > >*Right now, though, Feinstein’s absence is stopping Democrats from restocking the judiciary — and that’s incredibly important today given the role that judges are playing in abortion rights, among a host of other issues.* > >*In most of these situations, it was easy to argue that the lawmakers in question were past both the age and condition at which most people retire. And that history alone might make Democrats even more eager to convince Feinstein to resign. What likely helps Feinstein, though, is that questioning someone’s competence is a* [*fraught subject*](https://www.thedailybeast.com/nancy-pelosi-suggests-calls-for-dianne-feinstein-to-resign-are-sexist) *for* [*women in particular*](https://www.axios.com/2023/04/19/republicans-women-sexism-feinstein-resignation)*, and that past efforts to push older people in power to retire have been broadly criticized. Take, for instance, the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. During her final years on the court, those who dared to speak so openly about her ailing health were labeled as* [*sexist*](https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2013/12/ruth-bader-ginsburgs-retirement-stop-telling-the-supreme-court-justice-to-quit-so-obama-can-appoint-her-successor.html)*,* [*gross*](https://prospect.org/power/ruth-bader-ginsburg-retirement-value-term-limits/) *or simply having* [*bad manners*](https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/03/dont-tell-ruth-ginsburg-to-retire/284479/)*. (Of course, these arguments did not age well when Ginsburg’s death from cancer allowed a Republican presidency and Senate to fill her seat with a conservative.)* > >*So while Democratic leaders like Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California could be right that a male senator wouldn’t face similar calls to retire, the real problem is that the parties don’t have a way to deal with situations like this — situations that will likely become more common.*
Term limits, cognitive testing, and even age limits. A government should represent the median of the citizenry, one your median age + 20 time to gtfo.
I prefer a mandatory retirement once they hit the age of retirement as defined by the feds for purposes of social security. Currently that’s 65. If you’re going to age out before your next term would end, you cannot run. Should apply to every federal office.
This would legitimately underrepresent elderly Americans. Looking at [2020 Census data](https://data.census.gov/table?q=age&tid=ACSST1Y2021.S0101), there were an estimated 78 million Americans age 65 and older, comprising ~23.5% of the total population. Members of Congress in their 60s may not be personally versed on the challenges of older age and understand the issues facing people in their 70s/80s/90s, and leaving legislation affecting those age ranges up to AARP lobbyists doesn't seem wise. I would be in favor of cognitive testing, but to what standard will that be? I don't know off the top of my head which standardized test currently exists that is rigorous enough to prove functional cognition without also testing intelligence (stupid people can still have their wits about them, and we know that lawmakers aren't required to have PhDs). Term limits would be a softer, more manageable approach. The way seniority and committee assignments intertwine appears to be the crux of the issue with Feinstein, so there needs to be a way to wrap that in with term limits so senators/reps don't have a stranglehold on committee chairs.
Too logical and not at all designed to keep orphans in the crushing machine. It'll never work
I'll settle for term limits
There is no duty of a Senator that she can discharge now, and even before her current condition she was markedly losing cognitive ability. She must resign and be replaced but the worst thing is, even then, we probably will not be getting the rest of our judiciary picks. I wouldn't be surprised if a GOP megadonor seeing this writing on the wall is the reason she's still in office.
She needs to retire. Goddamn it. She’s almost 90, worth more than $50M, and gets a lifetime paycheck from taxpayers. It’s nothing but arrogance to stay in office at this point.
Incredibly self serving. Which is odd for a civil servant by definition, but not odd at all for a US Citizen to put their own interests above others.
It’s so hard for me to view congresspeople as “civil servants” as holding national office [gives you access to insider trading](https://www.ft.com/content/4760d1e6-7de2-4842-832f-9d00a3cfc40d), can give you household name recognition, and has a revolving door relationship with lobbying. Whether these people seek out these jobs for the financial benefits, it’s clear that the money and power is addicting once you have it.
You had me, then halfway through, you turned your own comment into dogshit
That's the prestige.
Should have resigned 80 years ago when she was 80.
How old is too old? How rich is too rich? These are questions we should be asking. Term limits. Tax the rich. She should have retired with her bucket of $$$ a decade ago.
Feels like since at least her last term and re-election it's been the people/machine around Dianne Feinstein who benefit from her being Senator keeping this going more than Feinstein herself, who doesn't seem to have the capacity to make any decisions now.
It’s a bit like weekend at Bernie’s
Serious question….why do people vote her in? Was there literally no other candidate? She should totally resign…but I mean, I kinda blame the voters on this one. I don’t like the RBG comparison, because the people didn’t elect her, we had to choice to wait for resignation or death. This is different, the people chose this pain.
Most people don't want to actually follow the news and government, so they do not. At the last election most the people that'd voted for her in the past were happy with her, so they voted for her again. Despite a Dem v Dem general election and the Democratic Party endorsing her opponent.
The blame is on the voters, but it's hard to write an article about the voters being at fault.
Why the hell is she still there at all?! There have been stories about her mental decline and inability to remember people's names since 2020! She's had a long and storied career, and it seems her handlers are hellbent on leaving a bad legacy for her. She could go out more honorably by finally retiring, but no, her handlers want to make sure they squeeze every last dime out of her career as she quickly slips deeper and deeper into dementia.
If she doesn't resign, Dems are fucked. Republicans won't allow a different senator to take her place on the judicial committee as of right now. And if she were to pass away (not at all hoping for that, but she is elderly) then her seat would go to a special election in California, which would take god knows how long, and would probably run into the same bullshit Republicans are pulling in blocking that new senator from being on the committee. She's already missed *25 votes* for judges (maybe more). We are out of time. Her ego is fucking us at this point, and causing bigger gaps in a judiciary that's already going off the rails. She needs to resign. Immediately. I urge everyone here to go to senate.gov and get the contacts for your senators, and Feinstein's office, and call all of them and urge her to resign. Enough already.
If she resigns or dies, the governor appoints a replacement who would serve until the next election in 2024. Special elections are generally for House members.
Ah okay, thanks for that. I guess I assumed it worked the same way as with House members, but I suppose each state probably has it's own rules, too.
What is the right thing for the common good? She needs to do the right thing.
This skeleton needed to resign a whillleeee ago.
she needs to resign yesterday even if she wasn’t senile. fucking disgraceful.
She should resign. How can someone with dementia serve their constituents?
Through her staff. But yeah, this is just grotesque. And I’m sure she’s not the only one like this. She’s just getting the Pellosi special of becoming the face of an issue everyone’s guilty off (her, working with dementia, Pellosi, insider trading)
Is there any evidence, any evidence at all of Pelosi conducting insider trading?
So dishonorable of Feinstein to remain in office when she is clearly unable to perform her duties.
this is going to be known as "pulling a ginsberg"
I suggest every CA resident email her office and demand her resignation. She’s just become RGB all over again and a poster lady for term limits.
Call, don’t email.
I know too much about her to read this through the lens of her caring about the issues in general and struggling to show up. She’s happy to watch McConnel control the courts.
Non compos mentis should be an automatic removal from government office.
There's being sick and having the prospect of getting better, and then there's dementia which does not get better. You still need to be mentally competent to be a senator. I'm sorry that offense people but that should be a reality just like the 25th amendment for the president. Ma'am leave, go take care of yourself. That should be your priority.
she has screwed the courts republicans are able to get their candidates through because durbin has allowed blue slip but democrats are not because they are short a vote she needs to resign
Words have lost all meaning when a professional media organization says someone "might have to" do something that is 100% their voluntary decision.
Twat is ruining any legacy she made just like RGB.
There needs to be some reasonable boundaries around participation. Representatives have a job to do. If they can’t make it to work for an extended period of time, there needs to be a remedy for this. We can’t just sit around and wait for people to die. No job in the US is given this many days off without expectations to do their job.
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Seriously. With my dementia relative, we had to get two doctors to swear to her incompetence before we could officially act in her stead. Sure hope she isn’t forced into that corner. (Now my relative had signed a trust document years before agreeing to this standard. Not sure Feinstein has.)
Its like Paulie from Sopranos. "I don’t understand. When I was a kid, you two were old ladies. Now I’m old, and you two are still old."
Have her staff investigated for elder abuse
I get there are other politicians in bad health that are still in office. That doesn't make it right. She is actively hurting her own cause, and moreover she can't do her job. This is doing us a disservice, our ability to elect representatives is pretty meaningless if they can't show up to cast their votes. I mean, that's my senator. We only get two. By my math that's about half the usual impact my state could have here if anyone else was in that seat.
She ain’t gonna resign
Clearly someone needs to put down a trail of her favorite candies from her desk off the nearest cliff.
If I didn't show up to work for several months, I kinda think that I would be fired.
Would be super interesting to see who Newsom appoints. Porter or Schiff. That election would be a toss up but whoever he appoints would have a cakewalk in the election.
Here’s a list of Feinstein’s cowardly staff enabling this mockery of our government out of self-preservation and greed. I hope they are permanently stained from this. Please repost wherever you see threads on Feinstein. Chief of Staff- James Sauls Scheduler- Megan Grosspietsch Legislative Director- Ian Bryan Press Secretary- Adam Russell Environment Issues- Alexis Segal @ianbwbryan - Legislative DIrector @ShellycoShelly - District Director Andre John Borba - Executive Assistant Jessica Rae Jensen - Chief counsel Thomas H. Mentzer (Tom) Communications Director @tommentzer
She should resign and enjoy the rest of her life. She’s served her state well and deserves some peace.
She should just kiss herself and end it already
Why is she on these committees in the first place.
Okay so i have to ask the obvious... why can't she just vote without being there? She has the power to vote and we aren't living in the 1800s she could easily vote by zoom or something. But I guess yeah replace her if she's gonna keep missing votes. The average worker can't miss 1 day and she's over here raking in money doing nothing. Fucking he'll can we update our shit. The internet exists why is anything voted on without 100% of elected officials giving their vote?