Senator Dianne Feinstein’s career was filled with firsts, including first woman mayor of San Francisco and one of two of the first women elected to the U.S. Senate from California.
Senator Dianne Feinstein’s career was filled with firsts, including first woman mayor of San Francisco and one of two of the first women elected to the U.S. Senate from California.
I thought it would never happen. I’m excited to see the race for her seat.
I assumed it would be a little like New York’s junior senator, Kirsten Gillibrand? She was someone most New Yorkers had never heard of, but when Senator Hillary Clinton vacated the seat, Gillibrand was assigned to it by then-governor and thus has never, and will never, run in a competitive election.
No, Newsom has said two things about the appointment: It’s going to be a black woman and it’s going to be someone intended to be a placeholder so as not to advantage one of the actual contenders (Schiff, Porter, or Lee) with incumbency.
Wow — congratulations to the people of California!
Except the “placeholder”.
I think the term of art he choose was “caretaker” come to think of it. But hell, they get to be a Senator for a year, something that they probably never would have gotten the chance to do otherwise. And it’s voluntary, of course, if someone doesn’t want the job temporarily they’re free to turn it down.
Caretaker is way better. “I’ll put a black woman in as a placeholder until a real senator can be elected” sounds horrible.
I mean, it’s a very pro-democracy move to make an explicitly temporary appointment and not distort the election. It’s also a very progressive move to fill the seat with a highly qualified member of an under-represented group. High marks on both counts. It’s just hard to describe the coincidence of those goals in a way that doesn’t sound like tokenism.
Placeholder Senate seat isn’t so bad, you still get to be a Senator even if only for a little while.
I think they meant having to be a senator in the current political climate.
Right. Whichever centrist he appoints is gonna decide they want to keep the seat, and the party protects incumbents from
progressiveschallengers.I thought you were going to talk about when Clinton wanted that seat so the party wouldn’t let any serious competitor run…
The people running the parties in America don’t seem overly concerned with democracy or voters getting choices