Well, first of all... I think the legal/procedural issues are more significant than her fee-fees. Let's say a family member strongly encourages her to resign, gets some sort of agreement from her, and announces it publicly... but then Feinstein, being senile, forgets she ever agreed, or claims she didn't, or suggests she was coerced into…
Well, first of all... I think the legal/procedural issues are more significant than her fee-fees. Let's say a family member strongly encourages her to resign, gets some sort of agreement from her, and announces it publicly... but then Feinstein, being senile, forgets she ever agreed, or claims she didn't, or suggests she was coerced into signing something. What do you do? Is her "resignation" official if she won't stay onboard or on-message about it, or there's talk swirling around that she was coerced?
Again, this is not only ugly but complicated. As I said in my follow-up post, it seems like the cleanest thing legally would be for family to have her declared legally incompetent (assuming she meets the standards) but surely everyone around her wants to avoid the humiliating spectacle of literally forcing her out. So yeah, I guess that's where everyone's fee-fees come in.
I think if she had a family who cared about this, if they removed her from DC to Calif it would no longer be America's problem. But I don't know all the arcane self-inflating rules Congress has, nor do I know Calif law.
She would need to send an unambiguous letter of resignation, likely to the Vice President and other particulars in the Senate. Once she does so, she’s out. This is not a reversible decision.
Well, in a word—exactly. My example was meant to illustrate what happens if Feinstein's family tries to "step up" (as someone posted above) but she isn't onboard. They really can't do some kind of end-run around official procedure to nudge her out while saving her dignity. Assuming she's not declared legally incompetent, SHE has to be the one to write (or at least sign) that letter of resignation... and how do you get her to do that if she still firmly believes (in her sadly addled mind) that she's capable and has no desire to step down?
That's why this is all a lot more complicated than "how could her family let her publicly disintegrate like this (while also depriving her constituents of a competent senator)?" The bottom line is that if she won't be convinced, there's nothing they can actually DO—short of having her declared incompetent, as I've discussed.
Yeah. We’re probably stuck with her until her term ends, unless she actually dies. The only silver lining to that is that she’s got less than two years left in her term.
I hope the OTHER silver lining is that, once Feinstein is out of office (so it doesn't blatantly appear to be about her) maybe we'll have some chance at a rules change to guard against this sort of thing. I don't know which option is most sellable to lawmakers: age limits? term limits? some trigger that kicks you out if you miss a certain number of days? some 25th-Amendment-like option to address mental incompetence? There are enough fellow geezers in Congress that I envision resistance to most or all of those.
But I think Feinstein will prove to be an object lesson for a lot of them. Legislatively, no one wants the problems Democrats had while she was absent and couldn't vote on judicial nominations.
And... I HOPE this will prompt a more personal reckoning too. I hope lawmakers will look at her and decide they don't want to end up the same way: publicly falling apart and too senile to know they need to quit.
It took FDR's death to give us term limits for presidents. He was the object lesson that showed how staying president indefinitely is a bad idea. Maybe Feinstein's decline can serve a similar purpose.
Well, first of all... I think the legal/procedural issues are more significant than her fee-fees. Let's say a family member strongly encourages her to resign, gets some sort of agreement from her, and announces it publicly... but then Feinstein, being senile, forgets she ever agreed, or claims she didn't, or suggests she was coerced into signing something. What do you do? Is her "resignation" official if she won't stay onboard or on-message about it, or there's talk swirling around that she was coerced?
Again, this is not only ugly but complicated. As I said in my follow-up post, it seems like the cleanest thing legally would be for family to have her declared legally incompetent (assuming she meets the standards) but surely everyone around her wants to avoid the humiliating spectacle of literally forcing her out. So yeah, I guess that's where everyone's fee-fees come in.
I think if she had a family who cared about this, if they removed her from DC to Calif it would no longer be America's problem. But I don't know all the arcane self-inflating rules Congress has, nor do I know Calif law.
She would need to send an unambiguous letter of resignation, likely to the Vice President and other particulars in the Senate. Once she does so, she’s out. This is not a reversible decision.
Well, in a word—exactly. My example was meant to illustrate what happens if Feinstein's family tries to "step up" (as someone posted above) but she isn't onboard. They really can't do some kind of end-run around official procedure to nudge her out while saving her dignity. Assuming she's not declared legally incompetent, SHE has to be the one to write (or at least sign) that letter of resignation... and how do you get her to do that if she still firmly believes (in her sadly addled mind) that she's capable and has no desire to step down?
That's why this is all a lot more complicated than "how could her family let her publicly disintegrate like this (while also depriving her constituents of a competent senator)?" The bottom line is that if she won't be convinced, there's nothing they can actually DO—short of having her declared incompetent, as I've discussed.
Yeah. We’re probably stuck with her until her term ends, unless she actually dies. The only silver lining to that is that she’s got less than two years left in her term.
I hope the OTHER silver lining is that, once Feinstein is out of office (so it doesn't blatantly appear to be about her) maybe we'll have some chance at a rules change to guard against this sort of thing. I don't know which option is most sellable to lawmakers: age limits? term limits? some trigger that kicks you out if you miss a certain number of days? some 25th-Amendment-like option to address mental incompetence? There are enough fellow geezers in Congress that I envision resistance to most or all of those.
But I think Feinstein will prove to be an object lesson for a lot of them. Legislatively, no one wants the problems Democrats had while she was absent and couldn't vote on judicial nominations.
And... I HOPE this will prompt a more personal reckoning too. I hope lawmakers will look at her and decide they don't want to end up the same way: publicly falling apart and too senile to know they need to quit.
It took FDR's death to give us term limits for presidents. He was the object lesson that showed how staying president indefinitely is a bad idea. Maybe Feinstein's decline can serve a similar purpose.