Again, the super old need to step down and not fuck everything up...

Gavin Newsom adopts Adam Schiff's excuse for keeping Dianne Feinstein in Senate

Alec Regimbal

Two of California's highest profile Democrats — Gov. Gavin Newsom and Rep. Adam Schiff, the latter of whom is running for Senate — have recently rallied around the same excuse for keeping Sen. Dianne Feinstein in her seat through the 2024 general election.

Feinstein is a member of the highly important Senate Judiciary Committee, which is responsible for confirming President Joe Biden's judicial nominees. Appointing judges to federal courts is something Democrats can do without support from Republicans, and Feinstein's multi-month absence from the Senate earlier this year — the result of a shingles diagnoses and complications from that diagnosis — left the committee evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, who refused to advance any judicial nominees in her absence. 

The episode resulted in numerous calls for Feinstein to resign. Newsom and Schiff refused to add their voices to those calls. And now, they're citing the possibility of Republican politicking as the reason for why the 90-year-old senator cannot step down.

Their argument is that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell could attempt to block any Feinstein replacements from joining the Senate Judiciary Committee, effectively stalling Biden's judicial nominees until the 2024 general election. According to a Wednesday report from Politico, Newsom — who was stumping for Biden in Boise over the holiday — forcefully made that point to a man who asked him to help push Feinstein out before her term ends next year. 

"You think Mitch McConnell is going to seat another federal judge? Not a chance in hell. You better wish, you better pray, for her health," he told the man, who, according to Politico, said he'd never considered that before backing away from Newsom. 

Schiff made the same point when speaking to SFGATE last month, saying, "Were she to leave the Senate before her term expires, I don’t think Republicans would let her be replaced on the Senate Judiciary Committee. The only way we can confirm judges is if she’s there, and she has been since she came back." 

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has endorsed Schiff's Senate run. To date, Pelosi hasn't offered the same excuse as Newsom and Schiff, instead asserting that people who'd prefer Feinstein resign are being sexist, "I’ve never seen them go after a man who was sick in the Senate in that way," she said in April. 

The concerns of Newsom and Schiff have merit. Republicans denied a request from Feinstein and other Democratic leaders to put a temporary replacement on the committee while the senator recovered from shingles. But whether Republicans could, or would, block a permanent replacement is an entirely different discussion, as that would open up the possibility of Democrats returning the favor in the future. After all, Republicans have their fair share of senators who are similar in age to Feinstein. And of course, regardless of any political machinations, there's no guarantee Feinstein will remain in good enough health to continue to cast votes through 2024.

No matter how much Newsom and Schiff buy into the belief that Republicans would obstruct a Feinstein replacement, they also have the incentive to avoid a political quagmire of Newsom's own making. A majority of California voters think Feinstein should resign before her term ends next year, but piling on a trailblazing senator who's had a storied career in California politics isn't a good look. More pertinently, Schiff is running to replace Feinstein, and one of his Democratic opponents — Rep. Barbara Lee — seems the likely replacement choice for Newsom, who promised to appoint a Black woman to Feinstein's seat should she resign prematurely.