It’s sad to see what has become of a historic leader like Sen. Dianne Feinstein | Opinion
Sen. Dianne Feinstein has had a spectacular and historic career in politics. She was the first woman to become mayor of San Francisco in 1978, ascending to the position after the assassinations of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. It fell to Feinstein to announce that the two leaders had been killed in City Hall. Supervisor Dan White was later convicted of manslaughter, and it was Feinstein who led her city beyond the tragedy in nearly a decade as mayor.
Then Feinstein became the first woman to be elected to the U.S. Senate from California in 1992. She has been a powerful advocate for California and her nation for much of the last 30 years.
But she should also announce that she is not running for re-election in 2024. Frankly, she should have done it long ago to spare herself the indignity of watching members of her own party declare their intentions for an office she has not officially relinquished.
It’s been a sad spectacle, not befitting a leader of her stature. But that’s what happens when leaders stay too long.
At 89, it’s time for Feinstein to call it a career, a great career, and do what all of us have to do eventually. We make way for the next generation. It pains me to say it, but I saw warning signs that Feinstein was struggling the last time she ran for re-election in 2018.
She was seeking the endorsement of The Bee when the two of us crossed paths.
I said, “Senator, I moved down from Oregon a few years ago, and I have to say you remind me very much of Senator Hatfield.”
Now, Sen. Mark Hatfield is in any U.S. Senate historian’s top 15 members of all time. A former Republican chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, he was brilliant, courtly and thoughtful.
But Feinstein responded jarringly to my obvious compliment in a loud and combative voice: “DO I?”
I recovered enough to say, “Yes, Senator, in the sense that you are ecumenical in your dealing with other senators.”
Feinstein, in the same tone of voice, said, “AM I?”
It was a bizarre exchange. The Bee endorsed Feinstein in 2018 because she was the most obvious answer to this question we posed to readers in our endorsement editorial: “Who will better defend the people of this overwhelmingly blue state against the administration of President Donald Trump?”
Kevin de Leon, the now disgraced Los Angeles councilmember, was Feinstein’s opponent in 2018, and I suppose he has proven why newspapers such as The Bee — and voters — went with Feinstein back then.
But soon enough, Feinstein would demonstrate that she wasn’t up to the job, either.
Who could forget Feinstein hugging Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham in 2020 after Graham and other Republicans forced the Supreme Court confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett in the dying days of Trump’s corrupt presidency?
“This has been one of the best set of hearings that I’ve participated in,” Feinstein said afterward. “It leaves one with a lot of hopes, a lot of questions and even some ideas perhaps of good bipartisan legislation we can put together.”
It was as if Feinstein had forgotten that Republicans had blocked former President Barack Obama from nominating a justice to the court in the final year of his presidency in 2016 but then allowed Trump to do it. Meanwhile, the consequence of Barrett’s hurried confirmation is that she voted with a majority of justices to overturn Roe v. Wade.
After Barrett was confirmed, a damning report in The New Yorker revealed that Sen. Charles Schumer, leader of the Democrats, was dismayed by how Feinstein had bungled the hearings. The story said Schumer encouraged Feinstein to step down as the top Democrat from the Judiciary Committee with her “dignity intact.” Even worse, The New Yorker reported that Schumer had to repeat the conversation because Feinstein appeared to have forgotten their first conversation.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported in 2022 that “when a California Democrat in Congress recently engaged in an extended conversation with Sen. Dianne Feinstein, they prepared for a rigorous policy discussion like those they’d had with her many times over the last 15 years. Instead, the lawmaker said, they had to reintroduce themselves to Feinstein multiple times during an interaction that lasted several hours.”
With Feinstein silent on the subject of her re-election plans, prominent U.S. House members Adam Schiff and Katie Porter have already announced that they are running for Feinstein’s seat. Others are sure to follow.
Interestingly, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi immediately endorsed Schiff, but politely observed that if “Senator Feinstein decides to seek re-election, she has my whole-hearted support.”
Really? OK.
Pelosi, 82, is a truly historic figure alongside Feinstein. She also stepped down as the leader of House Democrats to clear the way for a new generation.
Pelosi’s decision was the right one, if poignant.
It’s time, sadly, for Feinstein to follow Pelosi’s lead and step aside with grace.