Feinstein: Should she resign?

The debate over the future of Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s career “has taken an ugly turn,” said Aaron Blake in The Washington Post. The 89-year-old California senator, who even former aides have admitted shows signs of cognitive decline, has been absent from the Capitol since February because of shingles complications. As the Senate Judiciary Committee’s ranking Democrat on a 11-10 panel, she’s missed nearly 60 floor votes, and her absence has stalled approval of about a dozen of President Biden’s federal court nominees. Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) last week called on Feinstein to resign. Though she refused, she asked Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to appoint a temporary replacement on the Judiciary Committee. But that move would require at least 60 votes in a Senate with a 51-49 partisan split, and Republicans say they will block a replacement. For Democrats, “there are no easy answers.”

Yes, there are: Feinstein should step down, said Jonathan Chait in New York magazine. If she resigns, California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom could pick her replacement, and the Judiciary Committee could resume confirming Biden’s appointees. Unfortunately, Feinstein’s allies are attributing the resignation calls to sexism. But

Feinstein has had a 31-year tenure in the Senate, which is unusually long “even by senatorial standards,” and her memory problems have been an open secret for years. It would be “an act of almost sociopathic indifference” for her to prevent Democrats from putting more pro-choice judges on the federal bench. It’s “not polite and not fair” for Democrats to try to push Feinstein out, said

Jill Lawrence in The Bulwark, but given what’s at stake, it’s “not wrong.” Donald Trump’s appointment of dozens of federal judges has moved courts to the far right on guns, abortion, and other issues. Democrats need to move quickly to rebalance the courts, so replacing Feinstein is critical.

Democrats have only themselves to blame for their predicament, said Kimberley A. Strassel in The Wall Street Journal. When Feinstein sought reelection at the age of 84, she was “already showing decline.” Yet California Democrats backed her anyway, making their current dilemma inevitable. Not incidentally, the incumbent president will also be an octogenarian in obvious decline if he runs for president 19 months from now. So “Democrats might view the Feinstein moment as a warning of the danger they are courting” by sticking with Joe Biden as their nominee.