It’s painful to say it but true: Sen. Dianne Feinstein needs to retire now | Opinion

Sen. Dianne Feinstein has been a barrier-shattering force in California politics who will long be remembered for her leadership and legislative achievements during her 30 consequential years in the U.S. Senate.

But since February, when she was diagnosed with shingles, Feinstein has been unable to perform her sworn duties. Though the shingles infection is not life-threatening, it can cause severe and painful complications in people over 60. Feinstein will be 90 in June, and she was hospitalized for a time in early March.

During her absence from the Senate, the Judiciary Committee has been divided among 10 Republicans and 10 Democrats, stalling President Joe Biden’s judicial nominations. Feinstein would be the decisive vote if she were able to cast it and it takes 60 votes to change committee assignments. The Democrats don’t have 60 votes.

Republicans are blocking Democratic efforts to replace Feinstein temporarily while her continued absence remains shrouded in silence. As of last week, Feinstein had missed 60 of 82 Senate votes.

For the good of the people and for the sake of the important work frozen in her absence, Feinstein should retire now.

We do not come to this belief capriciously, nor would we ever discount Feinstein’s singular legacy. Her story is remarkable.

Feinstein burst onto the national stage in 1978 — and became the first woman to be mayor of San Francisco — after the shocking assassinations of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. In 1992, Feinstein and former Sen. Barbara Boxer became the first women elected to the U.S. Senate from California.

There were only two women in the U.S. Senate before Feinstein arrived in January 1993. Now there are 25.

In 2007, Feinstein became the first woman to chair the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. And in 2017, Feinstein became the senior Democrat on the influential Senate Judiciary Committee, the first woman to hold that position.

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Her list of notable accomplishments is long. Feinstein authored federal assault weapons legislation in 1994, which created a 10-year ban on the manufacture and sale of military-style assault weapons, including Uzis and AK-47s.

Along with the late Senator John McCain, Feinstein sponsored an amendment to a defense policy bill that banned the torture of foreign detainees in U.S. custody.

While she’s a politician who was often criticized by progressives for being too moderate, Feinstein created significant law that serves to protect California’s precious natural resources, including bills that allocated $300 million in funding to preserve Lake Tahoe.

“Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein shaped California’s environment like no one else,” wrote E&E Daily, a trade publication that covers energy and the environment.

In 2018, Feinstein teamed with then-Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to secure hundreds of millions of federal dollars for California water storage projects as well as desalination and water recycling programs. As a benefit to San Joaquin Valley farmers, her work also gave the federal government’s Central Valley Project and the State Water Project more flexibility to increase water deliveries through the massive pumps in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

In her heyday, Feinstein’s brand of bipartisan deal-making was celebrated, but that is no longer the case. She is now largely viewed by progressives as being too accommodating to Senate Republicans.

Her friendships with Republican Senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Susan Collins from Maine became flashpoints when both voted to confirm judges Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court. Both conservative jurists later voted to repeal Roe v. Wade.

Feinstein is also the oldest current member of the U.S. Senate and the longest-serving woman in Senate history. Meanwhile, only a handful of acting senators have ever been older than Feinstein in the history of our nation.

Age and partisanship are not good enough reasons to suggest that a senator of Feinstein’s stature — or any elected official, for that matter — should retire before completing a duly elected term in office.

She simply is no longer physically able to meet the standard that she set during her long career.

In fact, it was Boxer, Feinstein’s pioneering former colleague in the Senate, who summed up why Feinstein should retire now before her term is up next year.

Boxer said that Feinstein once told her, “The longer you stay(in the Senate), the better you’ll feel, the more you’ll get done.”

“She was right. There’s no question about it,” Boxer told the Bay Area News Group last week. “But having said that, you’ve got to be able to do the job.”

As a consequence of Sen. Feinstein’s absence, Biden’s nominees are no longer moving quickly through the committee. Only judges with bipartisan support are advancing to floor votes before the full Senate.

Republicans have already blocked a request by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to replace Feinstein on the Judiciary Committee. Sen. Graham, Feinstein’s longtime friend, objected to Schumer’s resolution to temporarily replace Feinstein, as did the entire GOP caucus. There is no other workaround.

It’s difficult and poignant to recommend that Feinstein step down because of her admirable service and because of her deserved place among the most notable California legislators ever.

But the voters of California deserve a senator who is able to execute her official duties effectively.

The minuscule majority held by Democrats in the Senate cannot be sacrificed or endangered out of respect for one individual, no matter how noteworthy.

One of the few Democrats to speak openly about why Feinstein needs to retire, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) said, “While (Feinstein) has had a lifetime of public service, it is obvious she can no longer fulfill her duties.”

“Not speaking out undermines our credibility as elected representatives of the people,” Khanna said.

It is no secret that Feinstein has suffered a cognitive decline in recent years. In 2020, Feinstein stepped down as the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee because of her mishandling of the U.S. Supreme Court nomination of Amy Coney Barrett.

As the Associated Press wrote at the time, “That tension came to a head at the Barrett hearings, when Feinstein closed out the proceedings with an embrace for Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and a public thanks to Graham for a job well done. Democrats fiercely opposed Barrett’s nomination to replace the late liberal icon Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.”

Then in recent months, Democratic Reps. Katie Porter and Adam Schiff declared their intentions to seek Feinstein’s seat before she had officially relinquished it. Feinstein finally announced in February that she would retire at the end of her current term. (Rep. Barbara Lee of Oakland has subsequently announced that she is also running for Feinstein’s seat). Feinstein had hoped to serve until January of 2025 when she would be 91.

But that eventuality can no longer be delayed.

The senior senator could still step aside with honor by informing Gov. Gavin Newsom of her intentions to retire. Newsom has already said he would select a Black woman to finish out Feinstein’s term if she retired.

Elected officials owe it to voters to “well and faithfully discharge the duties” of their office.

Feinstein did so for decades with distinction and honor on behalf of the people of California and the United States of America.

If she retired now, Feinstein’s final political act would preserve her legacy as a leader who remained faithful to her duties to the end. She could preserve and strengthen her rightful place not just in California history, but American history.

An earlier version of this editorial incorrectly referred to 36 judicial nominees as being delayed by Feinstein’s absence when, in fact, that number referred to nominations at various stages of the confirmation process.