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- April 17, 2023
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Dianne Feinstein asked to be temporarily taken off the Senate Judiciary Committee last week in an effort to quash calls for her resignation, as her indefinite medical leave threatens to grind confirmation of Joe Biden’s court nominees to a halt. But Republicans, seeking to do just that, seem to be set on blocking her request, which could prompt a bitter fight in the Senate and ramp up the pressure on the California Democrat to step down before the end of her term.
GOP leaders haven’t formally said how they would handle Feinstein’s request, which Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer plans to take up this week. But Tom Cotton, a Republican on the Judiciary Committee, sent a strong signal over the weekend: “Republicans,” he tweeted Saturday, “should not assist Democrats in confirming Joe Biden’s most radical nominees to the courts.” According to a Monday report by Politico, more GOP lawmakers are expected to follow Cotton’s lead and play hardball. Schumer needs only ten Republican votes to approve the temporary swap. But that already difficult prospect could become near impossible if Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who returns to the Senate from his own medical leave this week, comes out against it. “My instinct is he would do everything he could to keep Democrats from stacking the federal judiciary,” a McConnell ally told the outlet.
Which makes sense: McConnell’s great political project has been the right-wing takeover of the judicial system, which he’s pursued ruthlessly. So it’s hard to imagine him and his allies suddenly finding the generosity of spirit to make it easier for Biden to get judges through. And yet, that’s exactly what Feinstein is forcing her party to bank on. “It’s one thing to take medical leave and come back,” California Congressman Ro Khanna, who has led the Democratic calls for Feinstein’s resignation, told Fox News Sunday. “It’s another thing when you’re just not doing the job.”
A number of top Democrats, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, have bristled at the resignation talk, suggesting that calls for her to step down are improper or even sexist. “I’ve never seen them go after a man who was sick in the Senate that way,” Pelosi said last week. “We believe that a senator should be able to make their own judgments about when they’re retiring and when they’re not, and they all deserve a chance to get better and come back to work,” Gillibrand told CNN over the weekend. “Dianne will get better. She will come back to work.”
Except it’s not entirely clear she will. The 89-year-old Feinstein—who is the oldest sitting senator—has been out since February with shingles. And concerns about her health go beyond her current illness. Last year, it was reported that she was having difficulty remembering colleagues and following policy discussions. And last week, Politico reported that some of her fellow Democrats worry she will not be able to return to Washington, with associates noting that her recent illness has “taken a heavy toll on her.” That report prompted calls for her resignation from Khanna and Minnesota Representative Dean Phillips, who said that Feinstein is a “remarkable American whose contributions to our country are immeasurable”—but whose insistence on remaining in the Senate amounted to a “dereliction of duty.”
Much of the Democratic Party has tip-toed around such calls, even as critics liken the predicament to Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s decision to stay on the bench, which eventually led to the ascent of Amy Coney Barrett—Donald Trump’s third Supreme Court pick that gave conservatives a 6-3 supermajority. But the party’s position is going to be increasingly difficult to maintain if Republicans block her Judiciary Committee replacement—and untenable if her extended absence undermines them on other matters, including the debt ceiling standoff that will come to a head in the not-so-distant future. “We are going to need her vote on the Senate floor eventually,” Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar told ABC News’ This Week. Klobuchar did stop short of calling for her colleague to resign—but seemed to suggest that her patience had a limit. “If this goes on month after month after month, then she’s going to have to make a decision with her family and her friends about what her future holds, because this isn’t just about California,” she said. “It’s also about the nation.”
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