Feinstein should be able to retire on her own terms

California Sen. Dianne Feinstein says she hasn’t thought about retiring soon despite some assertions that the 87-yearold lawmaker should step aside because her cognitive abilities have allegedly declined.

“No, I haven’t,” she told me in response to a brief question about whether she’d considered retiring early. Her fifth full term doesn’t expire until the end of 2024 when she’ll be 91.

The universal assumption is Feinstein won’t run for reelection.

“I don’t feel my cognitive abilities have diminished,” she said.

“No, not really. Do I forget something sometimes? Quite possibly.”

That seems to be the main rap on her: short-term memory loss.

During my roughly half-hour phone interview with Feinstein on Tuesday, she did repeat herself a couple of times after she’d moved on to talk about other things. That’s normal for many people, especially as they get older. But I hadn’t noticed it before in her.

“People are willing to work with me across the aisle,” she said. “I’m respected. I have an effective staff … smart people. … There are a lot of good technical experts you can use to put programs together. …

“We do get things done and we do pass bills. You do get older, that’s true. But I have been productive.”

Feinstein just secured a $1.3 billion federal grant for the Purple Line transit extension on Los Angeles’ Westside. And she expects to secure $350 million for California water projects.

But “I’ve taken a few arrows lately,” she noted.

The sharpest dart came in an article by Jane Mayer in the New Yorker magazine. She cited anonymous sources as saying that Feinstein’s “short-term memory has grown so poor that she often forgets she has been briefed on a topic.

L.A. Times columnist Erika D. Smith followed by writing that readers should urge Feinstein “to step down early … so that California will have two open seats in the U.S. Senate instead of just one.”

“Now is absolutely the time to be an ally to communities of color and let another younger lawmaker represent the evolving values of this state,” Smith wrote.

One of the biggest criticisms of centrist Feinstein by liberal activists is that she’s too civil and mannerly. Not harsh enough on Republicans. That’s also why she has been an effective senator.

“I like to work in a bipartisan way,” she said. “Some people on the left don’t like that. But that’s what the Senate should do. It benefits the people.”

Feinstein was widely criticized by liberals for her handling of the confirmation hearings for conservative Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett.

Feinstein handed her critics priceless fodder when she congratulated committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, RS.C., for well-run sessions. And then they hugged.

Her explanation: She was only complimenting the chairman for that day’s session, which involved just public testimony. Barrett wasn’t present.

“I felt very badly,” Feinstein recalled. “It was a hard one for me. Because if I can’t have good relationships with someone simply because they’re a Republican — and Lindsey is the committee chair — that’s not good. I think civility and bipartisanship mean something.”

Feinstein later stepped down as the committee’s No. 1 Democrat.

Jerry Roberts, a former San Francisco Chronicle top editor and political writer who wrote a book about Feinstein’s stint as San Francisco mayor, says:

“She deserves great respect. She was a political pioneer in advancing the cause of equality of women in electoral politics and it is sad if not disgusting — as well as sexist as hell — to see and hear political operatives and hacks with no sense or regard for history attack and dismiss her.”

She was the first female mayor of San Francisco and — along with Barbara Boxer — the first female senator from California. She passed the nation’s first assault weapon ban.

Feinstein may be over the hill. But she has earned the right to decide on her own when to descend all the way without being pushed.