BREAKING: Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a trailblazer in U.S. politics and the longest-serving woman in the Senate, has died at 90. https://t.co/NFExqhBvMZ pic.twitter.com/pEHAANiGyU
— NBC News (@NBCNews) September 29, 2023
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Sad but not really surprising. She has been unwell for some time. May she rest in peace.Report
My first thought on reading this news was “Schumer and the Dem leadership in the Senate knew.” Not the exact date- to be sure- but that she was on her way out and soon. It makes the way they ignored all the screaming from the bleachers about forcing her out seem entirely rational and almost humane in hindsight.Report
Really? That was your first thought? And if it was, why would you admit it?Report
Because I didn’t know the late Senator. I’m too young to have seen her in her prime and so for my adult life she’s mostly just been a warm body in the Senate (at best). I’m sure I’d have had charitable thoughts about her friends and relatives losses had I known her better or if I was a nicer person but I am a cynical watcher of politics. At least my relief that Californians will soon have have two Senators again was a fifth or sixth order thought.Report
She had been a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors for years, but kept losing mayoral elections and had announced her intent to leave politics. Then she became mayor when George Moscone was murdered by Dan White, served for ten years, did a fine job both administering The City and healing its wounds, and eventually turned that into a Senate seat.Report
Did you see the recent photographs of her? It doesn’t take a Sherlock or a medical doctor to realize she did not have much time left.Report
I had seen a couple, a skull with skin is the word that jumped to mind.Report
It is telling to me that talking this morning with my friend and contacts that cover congress, and listening to Mitch McConnell and others make their statements, there wasn’t anyone in Washington that worked or covered her that didn’t personally like her or have bad things to say about their interactions when she was healthy and doing her job. That’s rare enough testimony in the halls of the Capitol these days.Report
As an advance directive, if I’m on a sales call in the morning and die of old age later in the day: please arrest my caregivers.
Unless I’m Pope, then carry on with the protocols.Report
Newsom has apparently walked back on his promise to appoint a black woman but also announced he intends to appoint a caretaker who will not run in 2024. Both of these are probably good decisions.Report
Chesa’s not doing anything.Report
This is like F minus trolling.Report
Compared to saying “I promise to appoint a Black woman” and then walking it back?Report
I think he should appoint Kamala Harris with his endorsement for the seat in 2024.Report
Ah, the Josh Barrow 3D Chess scenario…
However, the 25th Amendment presents a 4D Chess problem
Section 2.
Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.
One heartbeat from President McCarthy.Report
I mean obviously I’d hope Biden lives for the next 14ish months but if he didn’t I wouldn’t necessarily hate the chaos thrown on the GOP from having to navigate an election with a despised one of their own technically being the incumbent.Report
There’d be no chaos at all. The prospect of tax cuts for the wealthy would instantly unify the GOP in favor of not accepting any replacement. Besides, opposing any Biden pick for anything is their default state.Report
Depends on the date of the last heartbeat… the incumbent President isn’t automatically on the ballot.Report
Perhaps I’m missing a step here. If, for -any- reason the Vice Presidency is vacated, the GOP Congress will -always- refuse to approve a replacement Veep unless it is, I dunno, Trump himself or someone else they specifically select. There is zero downside. They don’t even pretend to try and govern now. If Biden lives out his term then they lose nothing. If Biden dies then the Speaker becomes President. Heck, stonewalling Garland for the Supreme Court was more iffy than this scenario and they did that.Report
InMD is mooted: “the chaos thrown on the GOP from having to navigate an election with a despised one of their own technically being the incumbent”
Which I took to mean the scenario where an empty VP and a Biden exit = McCarthy as the despised incumbent.Report
That is indeed the scenario I was envisioning. Biden dies without a VP so McCarthy becomes president but Trump is preemptively still the GOP nominee.Report
*presumptively not preemptively.Report
Eh.. the GOP would still take it in a heartbeat. Tax cuts now, then they fight out who will do tax cuts later. Still no shot they’d appoint a veep. McCarthy isn’t despised by the GOP as a whole, he’s disliked by, like, half a dozen wingers. This is a problem for him only because his majority margin is smaller than the number of high grade nuts in his caucus and because any one member of his caucus can file a motion to vacate the chair.Report
Probably right. But since it looked like no one else was going to tee up the hypothetical I figured I might as well.Report
Fair enuff, it was fun!Report
InMd’s suggestion is not doing anything to convince me that my theory is wrong. That theory being the subtext of Biden is old is “and if something happens to him, the black lady will be in charge. We can’t have a black lady in charge.” It’s impossible for white person fee fees to deal with a black lady in charge.Report
I’m thinking of Peggy Noonan’s remark, upon Barack Obama entering the Presidential race, “Let us savor”, because the idea of a black man becoming President was for her (and many others) literally inconceeeevable.
I think Harris is more popular than people think, and especially in a head to head with Trump, at least as strong as Biden.
Biden’s lack of Obama-like personal popularity demonstrates this actually.
Democrats aren’t looking for a superhero they just want to defeat Trump and avenge Roe.
YMMV.Report
Interestingly, it was a lefty guy I knew in my 20s who accused me of the worst form of identity politics with my observation on cries about Biden’s ageReport
In a way, given that actual voters skew old, running the oldest person to ever be elected president could be the smartest identity politics play of all.Report
Here’s Peggy Noonan’s 2004 essay “So Much to Savor“.
Some people read that as saying “a black man will never become president!”
Others read it as saying “The Democrats had a crappy night. They only had one major victory and that was the Illinois senator.”
Still others thought it was written in 2008 rather than 2004.Report
Woof! That aged like an egg in a glove compartment in august!Report
The main thing I remember about 2004 is arguing that Kerry was an awful, awful candidate and people arguing against me that he was the best that the Democrats had to offer.
I was a Gephardt man, myself.
SMGDMFH.Report
Well, with 20/20 hindsight we should be pretty grateful Kerry lost. 2004-2008 was a brutal term. The reeking fiascos of Iraq and Afghanistan were just becoming evident but both were already locked in and the great recession was gearing up.
But reading Noonan celebrating the Swift Boating was amusing. Just another vector point in the rights relentless descent into alternative reality but not a small vector point.Report
Kerry was an awful candidate for truthful reasons as well, though. The Swift Boating was merely a darkly ironic reason for him to have been taken down. (Remember him telling the story about throwing his medals over the White House fence? Hell, remember John Edwards? Good times.)
Because, seriously, he was an awful, awful candidate.Report
Gephardt should have run with Dukakis. Between them, they have average eyebrows.Report
Well it’s a fun thought experiment but utterly ludicrous politics even if Harris were willing to accept it graciously.Report
He could, technically, say he’s going to do it next year. The Dems could, in theory, operate down one Senator until then. But it’s moot because it’d require Harris accepting it which she, of course, would never do.Report
5D Chess, hold the vacancy open a year (secretly promise to Kamala)… see how the election goes, and if Biden wins and D’s have majorities replace Kamala with (
Gavin).But then why would she do that? The ‘upside’ would be pulling her from re-election campaign by ‘promoting’ her to the Senate.
Alas, will probably be a boring insider Cal Dem person getting a sinecure for past services. Been done lots of times… I remember reading about the perqs that come with being a Senator if only for a few months.Report
I think it’s too 5d. Firstly, the primary “motivation” to “promote’ Kamela to Senator is to ostensibly allow removing her as a factor in the upcoming presidential election in 24. Doing it after the fact would be, well, pointless and even more impossible for her to accept.
Secondly, A re-elected VP Harris would be heir apparent for her own Presidential nomination and run and, having been re-elected, would have an iron argument against her nay-sayers. She’d have even less reason to accept “promotion” to Senator than prior to the election.Report
Infinite dimensional chess says Newsom should nominate Ketanji Brown Jackson. She accepts, then Biden nominates Trump for the Court, then he’ll have to go under oath in front of the Senate. When he gets rejected, Biden nominates Harris and appoints Newsom VP, then steps down.
Nah, that’ll never work. We’d end up with two experienced, non-senile candidates who represent their parties.Report
That’s dimensional GO levels of strategery.Report
It’s simple, really. Ask yourself, what would benefit each of the players? and what would each of them be willing to give up?
Oh, and the head injury part. Bang yourself in the right temple pretty hard before all that. Not hard enouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuReport
A new VP can be now be confirmed only during a trifecta.Report
In the foreseeable future it would seem so. Although I suppose if the House Speaker was of the same party as the President, an opposing senate might prefer a VP from the other party to the Speaker from that party being next in line. Theoretically.Report
No.Report
As a matter of practical strategery I would simply appoint a black woman and talk about how great it was that I appointed a great black woman.
Me saying that I ‘should’ appoint a black woman before I’ve done so has all the downside of not appointing a black woman without any of the upside when I do appoint a black woman.Report
Professional Democratic staff are badly influenced by the identity sphere of internet leftists. What is good for the organization is subservient to what is good for given actors to preen about on social media. It’s a problem and would be a cataclysmic one if it weren’t for the fact that it’s even worse on the right.Report
I don’t think it is that bad and I can see why he made the promise.Report
This specific example is a little cringe, to quote the youngs, but not too bad. But the overall phenomena is a problem.Report
This is your periodic reminder that San Francisco politics is not as radical as right-wingers imagine it to be or as radical as actual radicals want it to be.Report
I just looked up the list of senators who have died in office, and it’s really weird. Obviously there’s something I don’t understand about history, because the numbers in the first half of the 20th century are crazy. There have been 9 senators who’ve died in office from 2000 to today. There were 16 during the same period of the 1800’s, and 60 during the same period of the 1900’s. These were sitting, so I don’t think they could have been war deaths.
https://www.senate.gov/senators/SenatorsDiedinOffice.htmReport
Dysentery.Report
Also yellow fever. The disease killed 10% of Philadelphia’s population in 1793, and a larger percentage fled the city during the summer.Report
1918 stands out (7 deaths). That’s probably influenza.Report
You’re surprised that more people died younger before penicillin was common?Report
The counterintuitive thing is that there were four times as many Senators dying in office in the early 1900s as died in the early 1800s. Even accounting for the fact that there were twice as many states (and therefore twice as many Senators), that’s a bit surprising.
I would attribute this to the Senate only having been around since 1789. By 1800, a Senator could have served for no more than 11 years, and by 1823 only 34. So there probably weren’t that many really old people in the Senate. If we look here, most of the Senators who died in office in the early 19th century were first-termers, and the oldest was 57.Report
Actually, I didn’t sufficiently adjust for the size of the Senate. While there were 24 states and 48 Senators in 1823, there were only 16 states in 1800 and the 18th was added in 1812. So while the mortality rate of sitting Senators was moderately higher in the period 1900-1923 than in 1800-1823, it wasn’t twice as high, as I originally thought.Report
Most of the gains in life expectancy have been through the huge drop in child mortality. However, since 1950 or so there’s been about a 10 year increase in the life expectancy of an adult. Those Senate numbers were just interesting to me. You can sometimes get surprises from looking at numbers in a different way. Just seeing a move from 5 deaths per year to one every 5 years really highlighted a few different trends.Report
Here’s a different sort of hypothesis… In the early 1800s Congress tried to finish up their business and go home before they got into the worst of the summer months. DC was largely a swamp when it was donated, and disease vectors like the Aedes aegypti mosquito are more common and more active in the heat/humidity of summer. By the early 1900s, I believe they were staying in the city during the summer.Report
Gavin Newsom has named Laphonza Butler as California’s (interim) Senator.Report
Aaaaand it’s already generating discourse.
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Newsome explicitly said he wasn’t appointing ANY of the current 4 candidates running. That tells me he doesn’t want to pick a favorite among them. Pretty shrewd if you ask me.Report
If not shrewd, then at least necessary. So now he has appointed a black woman, as promised. Even though there apparently isn’t a promise not to run, she probably doesn’t stand a chance, even with pseudo-incumbency, against the current field, so Newsom can keep his hands clean, not making a dozen enemies and one ingrate.Report
Not shrewd enough for the Jacobin crowd, I guess.
(To be honest, I do see why someone might prefer that the new Senator be more California-adjacent than Maryland-adjacent but, hey, he picked someone who wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance in 2024 but would still vote the way she was told and that should be good enough for everybody.)Report
Who the actual fish cares what the Jacobin clowns think? Democrats most assuredly don’t.Report
So we merely have someone from Maryland being California’s senator (in the interim, anyway).
It’s not like she’s going to vote any different from Feinstein.
At this point, what difference does it make?Report
She was in California working and living until 2021 and likely will move back. Tempest in an unnecessary tea pot.Report
I can’t imagine that anyone would think that there’d be a better option.Report
Everybody probably thinks there’s a better option. And everyone’s better option is different. This one will do fine.Report
I’ve long said that one of the big differences between the parties is the whole local thing.
A Colorado Republican and a Massachusetts Republican and a Florida Republican have a ton of unsurprising overlaps but there is also a lot of wiggle room on this or that topic.
A Michigan Democrat and a Washington Democrat and a Georgia Democrat seem to be much more interchangable.
So a Maryland Democrat should do just fine in California.
It’s not like she’s going to vote any different than DiFi did.Report
She’s a placeholder Senator until the actual candidates are chosen by their voters. In that context I see no serious matter for concern and if she tries to run for the seat then her voters can (and will) weigh in on the carpetbagger allegations.Report
its hard to allege carpet bagging against someone who has been out of the state she now represents for 2 years . . .Report
I don’t see her as deserving criticism in this. Hell, she obviously didn’t know that she was likely to be picked or she wouldn’t have changed official residences or where she was registered to vote or anything like that.Report
From time to time I wonder if this isn’t true for any long-time member of Congress from the western states. Five or six hour flight each way, plus transit time on both ends. As the years pile up, it must be really attractive to have a house in Maryland or Virginia and stay there for all but the longest recesses.Report