Feinstein’s absence in Washington is creating headaches for Biden and the Democrats

SACRAMENTO —  California Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s absence in Washington, which began when she was briefly hospitalized with shingles in February, has created headaches for President Biden and congressional Democrats in Washington and is stirring speculation at home.

Though working at home in San Francisco while recuperating, Feinstein’s absence from the U.S. Capitol has halted confirmation hearings for federal judges in the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is split evenly with 10 Democrats and 10 Republicans because of Feinstein’s absence. The committee’s last vote on a Biden judicial nominee was Feb. 16.

That has prompted calls for her to resign from some Democrats, who say the party’s agenda in Washington is more important than showing deference to her distinguished career, according to a story by Alexandra E. Petri.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) was among the first to publicly call for Feinstein to step down.

“It’s time for @SenFeinstein to resign,” Khanna tweeted. “We need to put the country ahead of personal loyalty. While she 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, by the way, is a big supporter of one of the top Democratic candidates running to replace Feinstein in the 2024 election — Rep. Barbara Lee of Oakland.

The story of Feinstein’s fate in Washington was gathering steam all day Wednesday and, finally, the senator put out a statement to address it. Feinstein said her return to Washington has been delayed by “continued complications related to my diagnosis,” but that she had no plans to head for the door.

“I intend to return as soon as possible once my medical team advises that it’s safe for me to travel. In the meantime, I remain committed to the job and will continue to work from home in San Francisco,” Feinstein said. “I understand that my absence could delay the important work of the Judiciary Committee, so I’ve asked Leader [Charles E.] Schumer to ask the Senate to allow another Democratic senator to temporarily serve until I’m able to resume my committee work.”

Feinstein has served in the Senate longer than any other woman in history and, at 89, is the oldest member in the upper chamber. The trailblazing San Francisco politician, who was first elected to the Senate in 1992, has faced questions in recent years about her mental fitness for office and has stepped back from some official duties.

In February, she announced she planned to retire when her term ends in early 2025.

Interested in the jockeying to replace her? Continue reading.

Republican Senate candidate joins the party

Weeks before Feinstein announced she planned to retire after serving out her current term, some of California’s top-name Democrats already were lining up in hopes of taking her coveted post in the Senate.

Along with Lee, Reps. Katie Porter (D-Irvine) and Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) announced Senate campaigns earlier this year. Schiff became a nationwide star among Democrats for his role as the lead prosecutor in the first impeachment of former President Trump and Porter has been celebrated for eviscerating chief executives during congressional oversight hearings. Lee, a longtime social justice activist, was the only member of Congress to vote against the measure that authorized President George W. Bush to use military force after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

With the California Senate race already competitive, the biggest open question, until this week, was whether a major Republican candidate would enter the fray.

Los Angeles attorney Eric Early, a loyalist for former President Trump, announced his candidacy during a KABC radio interview on Tuesday. Now, it’s debatable whether Early can be considered a “major” candidate. He challenged Schiff for Congress in 2020 and lost, and he ran for California attorney general in 2022 and 2018 and failed to make it past the primaries.

There still is plenty of time before the primary election next March, so it’s possible that more formidable candidates may join.

But for now, for the GOP, Early is the party’s best hope — as much of a long shot as he may be. As Times reporter Seema Mehta noted in her story about Early’s announcement, not a single Republican candidate for statewide office has won since 2006.

More Democratic green for blue California

The Democratic Party’s resilience in the 2022 congressional elections, when it fended off an expected Republican landslide, wasn’t enough to hold on to the House of Representatives, but it was successful enough to raise questions about the party’s campaign strategy in states such as California.

The party opted not to invest heavily in California races last year, the logic being that California is an extremely expensive place to run for office and the Democrats may get more for their money is tight races elsewhere in the country. The party suffered the consequences, losing some close races in California that could have put the Democrats ever closer to holding on to the House.

Now, with Congress again up for grabs in 2024, the Democrats are pouring in some serious money. A super PAC tied to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) and the Democratic House leadership pledged this week to spend $35 million on competitive congressional races in the state. That’s roughly triple what the group spent in the 2022 midterm campaigns in California.

“Democrats can’t retake the House without winning seats back in California,” David Wasserman, a congressional forecaster for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, told The Times.

Despite Democrats’ overwhelming voter registration advantage in California, it is home to several competitive congressional districts, in large part because they are drawn by an independent commission that pays no heed to protecting officeholders. The Republicans’ main congressional super PAC invested heavily in the state to protect the party’s incumbents, win an open seat in the Central Valley and nearly knock out a prominent Democratic House member.

While the GOP took control of Congress in 2022 and Bakersfield Rep. Kevin McCarthy won the speaker’s gavel in January, the margin of both victories was far narrower than expected, given historical trends, economic malaise and President Biden’s lackluster approval ratings.

The Republican super PAC is expected to spend a similar amount in California this cycle to aggressively defend its incumbents in tight races and to try to oust vulnerable Democrats.

California responds to Texas judge’s abortion ruling

On Monday, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that California will stockpile an emergency supply of 2 million abortion pills known as misoprostol in response to a federal judge in Texas ruling against the authorization of another medication that has been used to terminate pregnancies for decades.

The announcement follows U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s ruling Friday that aims to nullify the federal Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone, an abortion medication that has helped millions of women to end their early pregnancies.

On Wednesday, a federal appeals court temporarily narrowed the lower court decision, reducing the period of pregnancy when the drug can be used and said it could not be dispensed by mail.

As reported by The Times’ Hannah Wiley, Newsom criticized the decision by the Texas judge — who was appointed by President Trump — as an “extremist ban.”

“We will not cave to extremists who are trying to outlaw these critical abortion services. Medication abortion remains legal in California,” Newsom said.

Mifepristone is used in conjunction with misoprostol as a common abortion option for women in the United States, and research has shown the regime is safe and effective. The two-pill procedure can be substituted by a misoprostol-only option, though that can be less effective.

Although the two-pill procedure is preferred, Newsom’s office acknowledged, the state is in the process of purchasing up to 2 million misoprostol pills as a backup plan to keep abortion easily accessible in California. More than 250,000 pills have arrived in the state, according to a Newsom administration statement announcing the deal.

Newsom’s announcement is the latest escalation in the feud between Republican- and Democratic-led states over abortion access since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the landmark federal abortion rights case Roe vs. Wade in June. Over the last year, some states run by Democrats have strengthened their laws to keep abortion legal, while a number of those with Republicans in power have narrowed access to the procedure or, in some cases, completely banned it.

Keeping up with California politics

‘Against their will’: A proposed law would make it easier to detain people with mental illness
New legislation by state Sen. Susan Talamantes Eggman (D-Stockton) would expand the criteria by which people in extreme psychological distress can be detained against their will by police, crisis teams and mental health providers. It is among recent attempts by lawmakers to make it easier to help individuals, many of them homeless, who are suffering from potentially life-threatening psychoses.

Harley Rouda drops congressional comeback bid in O.C., citing traumatic brain injury from fall
Former Democratic Rep. Harley Rouda announced Tuesday he will withdraw his bid for a seat in Congress being vacated by Rep. Katie Porter (D-Irvine) after he suffered a traumatic brain injury in a recent fall. The Laguna Beach resident said in a statement on social media that as a result of a fall last month, he’d sustained two intraparenchymal hemorrhages, which can cause oxygen loss and tissue damage in the brain, and had to be transported to the hospital.

Skelton: If the public doesn’t finance political candidates, special interests will happily step in
American politics will never be perfectly clean because politicians represent and reflect imperfect humans. Yet voters unreasonably expect the people they elect to be, on the whole, better than themselves. In a recent poll by the Public Policy Institute of California, adults were asked whether they thought the state government was “run by a few big interests looking out for themselves” or was “run for the benefit of all of the people.” No surprise: 67% answered “big interests.” Only 31% replied “the people.” In hopes of changing that, legislation has been introduced in Sacramento that could reduce the influence of special interest money in politics. It would allow California governments — the state, counties and all cities — to enact some form of public financing of election campaigns.

How L.A.’s Doug Emhoff became the White House’s voice against antisemitism
In the two years since becoming the United States’ first second gentleman, Doug Emhoff, 58, has become an emissary for his trailblazing wife, Vice President Kamala Harris, crisscrossing the country to push COVID-19 vaccines and traveling to Tokyo to represent the U.S. at the Paralympics. A former entertainment lawyer from Los Angeles, he initially intended to focus his attention on gender equity and access to legal services. But as he settled into his new life in Washington, Emhoff found the accidental spotlight. No longer just a supporting character for his barrier-breaking wife, Emhoff emerged as an ambassador for his faith and heritage.

Arnold Schwarzenegger kicks asphalt, takes on pesky L.A. potholes. City says one was a service trench
Brentwood residents saw a familiar face shoveling asphalt repair mix into a hole in the street on Tuesday: Arnold Schwarzenegger. But what he thought was a pothole, it turns out, may have actually been a service trench for gas line repairs. The frustrated former governor and movie star took to the streets with a shovel, a bucket and a “do it yourself” attitude after he said he’d waited three weeks for the city to repair his local road.

California bill requiring schools to out transgender students to parents dies
A bill that would have required California school officials to alert parents if their child identified as gender-nonconforming or transgender won’t get a committee hearing, effectively killing the controversial legislation. Assembly Bill 1314, introduced by Assemblymembers Bill Essayli (R-Riverside) and James Gallagher (R-Yuba City), would have required school districts to notify parents in writing within three days if a student “is identifying at school as a gender that does not align with the child’s sex on their birth certificate.”