Pressure is on Newsom to quickly appoint Feinstein’s temporary replacement
The death of Sen. Dianne Feinstein places Gov. Gavin Newsom under intense pressure to quickly name a replacement as a bitterly divided Congress votes on a spending plan in the coming hours to avert a government shutdown.
Newsom had hoped to avoid the politically charged decision of selecting a second senator. But he will need to move swiftly as a budget standoff has the government on the verge of shutting down, and Senate Democrats could need every vote. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) affirmed on Friday that the fast-moving political situation creates an imperative for Newsom to make a difficult decision quickly.
“He, you know, wants to be respectful and not name somebody while folks are still grappling with their grief,” Kaine said, but “we cannot afford to be one down. We really can’t.”
The timing of Feinstein’s death — four months before a primary but more than a year before the end of her term — complicates this election cycle. Staff at the California secretary of state’s office was huddling early Friday morning to determine the timelines that would govern an appointment or a possible special election.
If he didn't already have someone in the wings to replace a seriously ailing 90 year old, then I'm going to consider him incompetent.
Yup.
Especially after the controversy with the “I would like to vote…” bit.
The problem is he made conflicting statements...he said he would appoint a black woman to fill the demographic gap created by harris-padilla, and said he won't appoint someone who plans to run in the election as an incumbent has an advantage he thinks dilutes the will of the voters in an open field. It puts him in a bad spot with Barbara Lee, a totally self-inflicted political pickle.
lol there is plenty more reasons than this to consider him incompetent
If I were placing a bet, it would be on Shirley Weber, a black woman who Newsom appointed to be SoS when he named Alex Padilla to the US Senate. She's a former state legislator, and at age 75 a 15 month appointment to the US Senate would be a fine way to cap off her political career, while making good on Newsom's promise to name a black woman and to appointment a "caretaker" who wouldn't run for the post.
Perfect. It’s not overthinking it, while keeping a promise, and not rebuffing anyone who wants to or is already running for the seat. I hope he doesn’t fuck this up.
And then she stays for next 30+ years...
I'm joking, that sounds reasonable and would also fit his statement that he won't pick up either of the running candidate to not tip the scale and to not tip it would have to be somebody who won't run next year. So as long as she guarantees that she won't run, then indeed she sounds like a great choice.
love it
Remember, as awful as she was, there are 49 Republican senators who are infinitely worse.
They are both systemic issues, and ranking them by "bad" is not particularly important. Ranking them by changeable is. Which is to say, either promote acceleration or term limits.
This is why 90-year olds shouldn't be allowed to run for political office. You know they can die at any moment and it's not going to be a convenient time.
Same is true of lifetime Supreme Court appointments. Look at what Ginsburg's poorly timed death did. Her legacy is permanently tarnished by allowing Trump of all people appoint her replacement.
Ginsburg no-doubt thought that Hillary Clinton would be there to do that, but how'd that work out? Roe vs Wade got overturned. Disgusting.
She should have retired before Obama left office.
Yes, but also they’d have blocked any nomination because of the republican-senate rule that you can’t hold hearings on a nomination during a Democrat administration.
She should have retired the moment he was re-elected; there would have been no way for the Republicans to have justified delaying hearings.
What a load of crap.
She was 90, everyone knew this was coming, arguably she'd already left the building a while ago, and this is politics not a private family gathering.
They're delaying because they want to be seen as respectful. It's optics. That's all.
You realize they all knew each other quite well, they were all in the same inner circles, right?
That maybe, just maybe, they're actual human beings and they actually do want to pay respect?
"Dear passengers, we apologize for the delay, but one of our pilots pilot died last week, we all knew them quite well, and we feel really bad about it, so out of respect we'll delay hiring a replacement and cancel the hundred flights they would otherwise have flown over the coming week."
Just repeating myself at this point, but here goes, for what it's worth...
Give me a fucking break, Newsom was not her BFF. This is bigger than their feelings. We can't afford to be down one senator.
If he's really too emotional to make this decision then he should resign because he's incapable of doing the job.
There's a range of friendship between not knowing someone, and being BFFs.
Always with the instant extremist opinion / options with you people.
Newsom has time. Her committee is not in session right now, as Congress/House is busy grappling with the last minute voting before the government shuts down, and in the Senate the VP can override any tie by voting herself.
How about he just wants to show some respect, to give people a moment to grieve. She was a big deal in California and San Francisco, even if you personally didn't like her.
What a pessimistic take. We should be expecting this kind of behavior from our politicians, not denigrating or whenever we see it.
This is how I see it, if you needed heart surgery but the surgeon died and the chief decided not to hire a new heart surgeon until everyone's fee fee feels got better and you died would you applaud the chief for being respectful? Fuck no and I'm sorry but she has been basically dead for at least a year and the second she was pronounced dead they should have been swearing in a replacement.
If he didn't have a shortisg ready to go he shouldn't be governor. Her death was not an unforseen event.
He does have a short list. A very short one. He has stated that he will appoint a black woman. But he's been back peddling on that, much to the chagrin of the only black woman running for the seat, congresswoman Barbara Lee.
How long is "temporary" when the previous person worked until they died at 90 years old?
Im sure its until the election, then they need to actually be elected.
The governor appoints to a vacancy in California.
Until an election, yeah.
The previous person wasn't appointed by the governor.
He has had ample time to see this coming and make up his mind.
Bids must still be coming in.