Opinion: Is everybody really happy that Dianne Feinstein is back at her desk?

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) has returned to Washington and is again on the job, presumably hoping to energy via for one more 12 months and a half to the top of her sixth time period within the U.S. Senate.

All people’s happy to listen to it. She was wheeled into the Capitol final week wanting worse for put on at 89 years previous however vowing to “resume my duties,” if on a considerably lighter than ordinary schedule.

Over the weekend, her would-be successors weighed in. Reps. Barbara Lee (D-Oakland) and Katie Porter (D-Irvine), who’re working within the 2024 election to interchange her when she steps down, each stated they have been glad she was feeling higher after her three-month bout with shingles, they usually wished her effectively.

Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), the opposite main candidate, expressed hope for “a speedy restoration” so she might get again to enterprise.

However what have been they actually pondering? I hate to be cynical — and I don’t declare to have mind-reading expertise — however frankly I’ve a tough time taking what they are saying about Feinstein at face worth.

Positive, they’re most likely glad she’s recuperating. However what I believe they actually care about much more than whether or not she’s on the mend is how her selections about staying on or resigning will have an effect on their upcoming race.

Right here’s the difficult actuality hiding behind the feel-good press releases. If Feinstein resigns earlier than the election — and that also strikes me as a really actual chance regardless of her return to Capitol Hill — Gov. Gavin Newsom has the authority to nominate somebody to fill her seat. And Newsom made a fateful promise on MSNBC again in 2021 not lengthy after appointing a Latino man to the final open seat: He promised that if he had an opportunity to nominate once more, he’d identify a Black girl. There are presently no Black girls serving within the Senate.

Proper now, the main candidates within the race to succeed Feinstein are Porter, Schiff and Lee — two white candidates and a Black girl, respectively.

Will Feinstein serve out her full time period — or will Newsom get to nominate? If that’s the case, will he appoint a Black girl as promised? If he does, will it’s Lee, giving her the large benefit of incumbency? Or will it’s a “caretaker,” who presumably would promise to not run for the workplace and to surrender the seat after the election.

Lee has a powerful incentive to hope for an early resignation by Feinstein, and to hope that Newsom will appoint her to the job. That, I believe, is why Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont), a co-chair of Lee’s election marketing campaign, was so fast to name for Feinstein to resign a number of weeks in the past, saying, “It’s apparent she will not fulfill her duties.”

Schiff and Porter, for his or her half, have good cause to need Feinstein to soldier on and serve out her time period. That’s most likely why Schiff has publicly pointed to issues with naming a substitute. If Feinstein stays, he famous, she will break the logjam on judicial appointments within the Senate Judiciary Committee, but when she steps apart and Newsom fills the emptiness, Republicans would most likely block anybody from changing her on the committee.

Newsom, by most accounts, isn’t looking forward to the chance to nominate a substitute. “I hope I’ll by no means should make that call,” Newsom stated in April when requested if he nonetheless meant to nominate a Black girl if Feinstein retired.

And on that I’m inclined to imagine him.

If she steps down and he doesn’t appoint a Black girl, it will fairly understandably be seen as a betrayal of African American voters. But when he appoints Lee, he angers Schiff and Porter and their sturdy supporters (reminiscent of Nancy Pelosi, with whom he’s shut).

If he appoints an African American caretaker — which might be his greatest and most secure wager — he’ll anger Lee and little question different African American leaders who will really feel it betrays the spirit of his promise. They’re searching for a real seat on the desk, not a brief caretaker position.

So whereas the glad tidings directed at Feinstein from California politicians aren’t lies, their press releases must be learn with a skeptical eye and some dozen grains of salt.

In the meantime, all that is separate from the query of whether or not Feinstein ought to resign for the nice of the state and its residents. There’s nonetheless strain on her to step down, particularly from progressives who’ve been sad along with her average Democratic politics for years.

However even that’s difficult.

If Feinstein is, as newspaper reviews have steered, exhibiting vital “befuddlement,” forgetting colleagues’ names and “quickly deteriorating,” it’s laborious to argue that she ought to stick round. Not solely would that be unfair to voters, however for Feinstein herself it could possibly be tough to outlive a 12 months and a half within the public eye with out an embarrassing mistake that tarnishes her legacy.

It’s additionally unhappy however true that a lot of a senator’s job could be completed by workers members, and that due to her 30 years of seniority within the Senate, Feinstein wields energy and authority {that a} substitute senator wouldn’t. She sits not simply on the Judiciary Committee however on the highly effective Appropriations Committee as effectively. Californians would lose affect instantly have been she to step down.

And all issues being equal, it’s higher for voters to pick their representatives than for governors to select for them.

Feinstein has been adamant that she is going to serve out her time period. If she will achieve this successfully, nice. Might her well being proceed to enhance.

I hope that every time she departs the Senate, will probably be along with her dignity intact and her legacy safe.

@nick_goldberg