Dianne Feinstein
Dianne Feinstein, senior Senator from California, passed away over the weekend at the age of ninety. The last year was not easy for Senator Feinstein. Frail and ailing, she spent several months at her home in San Francisco. When she finally returned to the Senate, she was wheelchair bound and appeared at time to be unsure of her surroundings. It was not a fitting end and many, including me, wondered if the rules of Congress are such that they force infirm representatives to remain on the job after they were no longer able to do the job.
None of that should take away from Feinstein’s long history of service and accomplishments. She was a trailblazing senator who defied the CIA and the White House. She served as the president of the county board of supervisors in San Francisco and was an eyewitness to the tragic assassination of Mayor George Moscone and supervisor Harvey Milk in 1978. Feinstein was one of the two women elected to the Senate in 1992, which was known as “the year of the woman”. She spent three decades in the Senate, making her the longest-serving female senator in US history.
Feinstein broke down barriers and glass ceilings. As head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Feinstein fought both presidents and the intelligence community when she believed they had crossed moral and ethical lines and tried to cover up their actions.
Having become mayor of San Francisco in the wake of assassination, she led the drive for a national policy to control guns. And she continued to fight for the reauthorization of those laws, which expired after ten years.
She built a reputation as a dogged centrist willing to bargain with Republicans, though she faced criticism from liberals at home and in Washington later in her career as the Democratic party moved leftwards.
“She was a political giant,” California Governor Gavin Newsom, one of her many political supporters, said in a statement on Friday.
In 2003, Ms Feinstein voted in favor of the Iraq War, saying she believed at the time that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. She later told CNN she regretted her vote and trust in the intelligence at the time.
After becoming chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2009, she supported the Obama administration’s controversial drone strike policy and said NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden was guilty of treason.
But she had serious criticisms of the US detention and interrogation programs created after the September 11 terrorist attacks. Her concerns led her to call for an investigation into the CIA’s use of torture. That work culminated in a 6,700-page classified report, completed in December 2012. A public summary, released in 2014, detailed what Ms Feinstein declared was a “un-American and brutal” system that was ineffective at gathering useful intelligence. Much of the report remains classified.
Governor Newsom has appointed Laphonza Butler. to replace Feinstein. Butler is a former union boss and the current president of EMILY’s List, a fundraising organization that supports Democratic women.
Butler will have the option to run for a full term in 2024, as Feinstein’s term was slated to end in 2024.
The following Democrats have declared their candidacy for the 2024 U.S. Senate election in California:
- Adam Schiff (U.S. Representative, California’s 28th congressional district)
- Katie Porter (U.S. Representative, California’s 45th congressional district)
- Barbara Lee (U.S. Representative, California’s 13th congressional district)
- Lexie Reese (former tech executive)
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I was going to argue with your claim that “the rules of Congress are such that they force infirm representatives to remain on the job,” but followed the link, read your previous post and yes, I see your point.
It’s sad to see older leaders cling to their roles without grooming successors. Happens in corporate, too. I have a leadership training and just added a slide on Succession because it’s crucial. No matter how great a leader is, if they are not recruiting, coaching, and training a next generation, if their organization lacks a ready bench of eager recruits, they are not doing their job.
Especially in politics, where we see vigorous, bright, future leaders with their careers blocked by the declining, out of touch, old-guard.
Reminds me of a story. I believe this is true as it was told to me by a knowledgable insider, but lack a clear reference. You know why Lockheed, as male-dominated as a company can be, had a female CEO (Marillyn Hewson, 2013-2020)? They had groomed a new CEO but just as the prior CEO was retiring, his heir apparent was “me-too’d.” Oops.They had no ready bench. Hewson, who had been in the company forever, was anointed and by all accounts I have heard, was a stellar chief.
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I interviewed many CEOs during my PBS days. I was surprised at how few really had succession plans in place. The best ones did, either because they did it themselves, or their companies had a set policy (Intel, IBM). Cheers.
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