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.
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.
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Many hospitals only have one surgeon for certain parts, a general surgeon probably can’t operate for complex heart surgery. And her not being replaced does stop the senate, without her the Democrats at best can break even on votes and with senama and mamchin willing to break party lines the republicans could do a lot of damage. Her holding power until she had to die makes her contribution null to me. I don’t have empathy for power hungry monsters. I would have if she left two elections ago. Thinking about it with mamchin and senima they could pass a budget that would end support of Ukraine which would kill thousands and all because this “human” wanted to stay in her position.
She deserves as much empathy as she offered up when she gave the middle finger to a classroom full of children asking to not be sentenced to cook to death.
Idk if she had redeeming qualities at some point in her life, but she cast those aside in order to cling to power, and eventually died a monster.
She doesn’t get bonus points for being blue, human or dead - her actions are what matters, and based on those, the world became a slightly better place when she passed.
I’ll sing the exact same song when Moscow Mitch finally bites the dust, and every other power-hungry obstructionist squatting in what could otherwise be a useful office.
What about empathy for all the people who will suffer because the Republicans get their way into the Senate? Why the fuck does Feinstein matter more than them?