California Senator Dianne Feinstein, 89, is asking to be replaced temporarily – WhatsNew2Day

San Francisco Senator Dianne Feinstein has announced that she plans to temporarily give up her duties to another Democrat after two fellow party members asked her to resign.

Feinstein, 89, made the announcement in a statement Wednesday, about two hours after Rep. Ro Khanna, also of California, and Rep. Dean Phillips took to social media to demand she step down due to a two-month continuous medical absence.

Successive calls for the elderly stateswoman’s resignation — both fellow Democrats — underscored growing concern about her extended furlough, which has hampered her party’s ability to install federal judges.

He supposedly had shingles, On Wednesday, Feinstein said she had asked Senate Leader Chuck Schumer to “allow another Democratic senator to serve temporarily” on the Judiciary Committee “until I can resume my committee’s work.”

However, the state senator did not provide a timeline for the unapproved arrangement, saying only that she would return to the Capitol when her medical team said it was safe for her to travel.

“When I was first diagnosed with shingles, I expected to be back by the end of my work period in March,” Feinstein wrote in the official release.

“Unfortunately, my return to Washington has been delayed due to ongoing complications related to my diagnosis.”

She added: ‘I intend to return as soon as possible once my medical team advises that it is safe for me to travel. In the meantime, I will remain committed to the job and will continue to work from home in San Francisco.

The former San Francisco mayor set out to succinctly address the core dispute over her sabbatical — how confirmation of President Biden’s judicial appointments, has been impeded by her seat on the Judiciary Committee.

Democrats held only 49 voting members of the Senate—and with the absence of another senator, recently elected Pennsylvania Rep. John Fetterman, Feinstein’s vote was particularly pivotal.

Fetterman, who was hospitalized for clinical depression, is expected to return to the Senate next week — nearly two months after taking his own leave.

“I understand that my absence may delay the important work of the Judiciary Committee,” she wrote in the final paragraph of the statement.

So I asked Chief Schumer to ask the Senate to allow another Democratic Senator to serve temporarily until I can resume my committee work.

Then the official correspondence ends abruptly, without any form of signature or feeling of gratitude to her colleagues who have put up with her prolonged absence.

Hours earlier, in a somewhat unprecedented move that signals the bizarre situation, two House Democrats called on Feinstein to resign after 31 years representing San Francisco in Washington.

The first to publicly call for the long game in the Senate was Rep. Khanna, who represents the neighboring Bay Area city of Santa Clara, who has previously aired plans to retire at the end of her term in 2024.

“Time for @SenFeinstein to resign,” the 46-year-old Democrat wrote in a Twitter post that has already been read nearly two million times.

“We need to put the country before personal loyalty,” Khanna continued. While she had enjoyed public service her entire life, she was clearly no longer able to perform her duties.

“Not speaking out undermines our (parliament’s) credibility as elected representatives,” he added.

The post, posted on Wednesday at 5:19 p.m., has already garnered more than 17,500 likes and thousands of retweets.

One of those tweets, which came a little over a half hour later, belonged to Khanna and fellow Feinstein on Capitol Hill Dean Phillips, of Minnesota.

Believe to say he agrees with Khanna, but he also paid tribute to Feinstein for her years of service — not just as a senator, but as San Francisco’s first female congressman in the late ’70s.

“Senator Feinstein is an amazing American whose contributions to our Country are immeasurable,” Phillips wrote on Twitter. “But I think it is now a dereliction of duty to remain in the Senate and a dereliction of duty for those who agree to remain silent.”

The two posts have since gone viral, likely playing a role in the Senate’s strong decision to release a statement later that day.

It is about Feinstein — whose political career spans more than half a century — that she has faced criticism from a number of Democrats, though none have yet made her request publicly clear.

Four US senators, including three Democrats as well as three former staffers of Feinstein and a Democratic congressman from California, told The Chronicle they feared she was “mentally unfit to serve” and that her memory was “rapidly deteriorating”.

“It’s bad, and it’s getting worse,” said one Democratic senator. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the actor added that Feinstein has a hard time keeping up with conversations and discussions.

“There’s a joke on the Hill,” another employee told a California Democrat, “We have a great little senator in Alex Padilla and an experienced staff in Feinstein’s office.” – He has for years.

Everyone who spoke to the paper agreed on one thing — that Feinstein could no longer perform her job duties, and that by remaining in office she was doing a disservice to the nearly 40 million people she represented.

In a statement to The Chronicle two weeks ago, Feinstein — whose husband Richard Bloom died 542 years ago — confirmed that she was still performing her duties as a senator, but declined to be interviewed.

“This past year has been very traumatic and distracting, as I’ve been traveling back and forth to visit my dying husband who had passed away just a few weeks earlier,” she said.

“But there is no doubt that I still serve and deliver to the people of California, and I will set my record against anyone.”

Feinstein (D-Calif.) was hospitalized with shingles in February and was released last month, but has not returned to the Senate, losing 60 of the 82 votes cast.

Feinstein is also facing criticism from a number of Democrats, who fear that she is “mentally unfit to serve” and that her memory is “rapidly deteriorating”.

Feinstein confirmed in February that she would not seek re-election in 2024, but it is widely believed that she will resign early before her term ends.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) has announced that he will run to replace Feinstein’s seat in the Senate. He has raised more than $6.5 million since entering the race in January.

Democratic Representatives Katie Porter and Barbara Lee also announced that they are running for the seat.

A GOP contender, Republican attorney Eric Early, threw his hat into the race on Tuesday, officially launching his bid in a new campaign video.

Early, who ran against Schiff in 2020, said in the video that he would campaign against fentanyl, the border crisis, and champion parental rights.

His campaign website reads, “Eric will stand up to the socialist awakened interests that control Washington, D.C., fight to preserve and protect our democracy, and fight for ordinary Californians left behind.”

He claims that other Democrats running for Feinstein’s seat have messy policies that are harmful to Californians.

Adam Schiff, Katie Porter, and Barbara Lee have been in Congress for 51 years combined. Judge them by the results of their actions and their votes – they put us in this mess,” he says.

He’s the first major Republican to announce his intention to run for the seat, but he’s facing a strong headwind in the staunch blue state.

Feinstein is the longest-serving legislator in Senate history.

The senator has largely avoided public events since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and after her husband’s death in February 2022.