Dianne Feinstein should be removed from office

Multiple sources tell Rolling Stone that in recent years Feinstein’s office had an on-call system — unbeknownst to Feinstein herself — to prevent the senator from ever walking around the Capitol on her own. At any given moment there was a staff member ready to jump up and stroll alongside the senator if she left her office, worried about what she’d say to reporters if left unsupervised. The system has been in place for years.

“They will not let her leave by herself, but she doesn’t even know it,” says Jamarcus Purley, a former staffer.

  Rolling Stone

Will they make sure she never sees this article? I mean, if she retires, their cushy jobs are over.

Momentary lapses and mixups about a topic are far from unheard of. But over the last several years, interviews with Feinstein devolved into confusion on a near-daily basis. A familiar pattern would emerge: Feinstein would make an unexpected stance on a bill or policy position, only for her staff to quickly follow up by email to correct the record. It got to the point where reporters would pause before rushing to publish an otherwise-newsworthy declaration because of the inevitability of staff reversing her statement.

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As the longest-serving member of the Senate majority, she would traditionally serve as president pro tempore, behind only the vice president and speaker of the House in the line of succession. Feinstein announced last October via a written statement she would voluntarily give up the title. But when asked about it three weeks later she told a reporter she was still considering what to do. The staffer quickly corrected the Senator.

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Feinstein joined the Senate in 1992 as the first female senator from California, accomplishing a series of firsts as she rose through the chamber’s ranks. As well as advancing landmark gun control and marriage equality laws, she became the first woman to lead the Senate’s intelligence panel in 2009. In 2017, became the first woman to chair the Judiciary Committee.

Now I'm wondering if she was capable of that job at that time.

Purley described office meetings where an issue would be discussed for several minutes, only for Feinstein to bring up the same topic later in the same meeting. Senior staff would then run through the whole conversation again as if they were saying it for the first time, to the discomfort of everyone in the room except for Feinstein. Another witness corroborated this account.

One person who did not want to be named recounted Feinstein asking a staffer for a memo, then responding with bewilderment when the memo was turned in the next day. These issues are longstanding: last summer, almost a year ago, one person who had worked with her and asked not to be named said “her days are all bad days now.” Feinstein’s acuity gets worse as the day goes on, multiple people told Rolling Stone, and staff have long tried to avoid her having any engagements after mid-afternoon.

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Purley is a rare former staffer willing to speak on-the-record about Feinstein’s health. He had a dramatic falling out with her office and was fired last February for failing to perform his duties. Purley, who is Black, said he was frustrated with the office and grieving the death of his father from Covid, and believes he was fired for saying on a staff call that Feinstein “cares more about her fucking dog than Black people.” His accounts of the office are supported by other sources.

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Purley said Feinstein’s office began noticeably restructuring around her mental limitations in 2019. He said that year formerly large staff meetings were cut down to only senior staff and people working on legislative issues. “Junior staff were making jokes about her cognitive decline. Interns were noticing it,” he said.

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California’s nearly 40 million residents have been without full representation in the Senate while Feinstein has been absent, and on the judiciary committee, the popular will that gave Democrats a majority has instead been reduced to a stalemate.

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Democrats such as Ro Khanna and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have publicly called for Feinstein to step down. So far, she has refused.

She may not even know she's still there. The last story about her coming back says when they started wheeling her in, she asked, "Where am I going?"

The seniority system in Congress ties old age to increased power, as young people are told to wait their turn. Incumbency comes with a higher profile and robust donor network. Leadership posts and committee chairs are often filled by people in their 70s and 80s who, by nature of their age and wealth, are disconnected from the problems facing broad swaths of the public.

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It can take years to get to the House, years more to jump to the Senate, and several terms to become a committee chair or leadership member. As the saying goes, every senator looks in the mirror and sees a future president. No one with real power wants to set the precedent of phasing out politicians as they get older.

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Congress has taken the form of a gerontocracy, with predominantly-older politicians drawing the public’s attention while a class of young, underpaid people in their 20s and 30s work long hours to do the heavy lift of governing.

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[H]aving unknown, unelected employees making hugely important decisions is far from unique. In many offices, it’s the norm.

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One day in 2017, then-79-year-old Thad Cochran, Republican senator for Mississippi got lost on his way to the Senate chamber, which was less than 20 feet away. He veered down a hallway and his staffer had to corral him in the right direction. At the time Cochran was one of the most powerful men in the country. He chaired the Senate Appropriations Committee, a coveted and influential post in charge of writing the laws that allocate trillions of dollars in government spending.

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[I]t was an open secret around Capitol Hill that Cochran was no longer able to function. [...] [B]asic interviews were beyond his capabilities. Eventually, in late 2017, Politico ran a story titled Frail and disoriented, Cochran says he’s not retiring. Six months later, Cochran retired.

Let's get those Feinstein stories out there.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.