Feinstein Should Resign Now and Newsom Should Appoint Barbara Lee

I want Katie Porter to win election to the seat currently held by Senator Dianne Feinstein. However, we cannot wait until the 2024 election for Senator Feinstein to get out of the way of the progress that can be made if she were present in the Senate. She needs to resign so that a competent person can replace her. 

If Feinstein were to resign, Governor Gavin Newsom would appoint her successor. There is only one person to consider for the appointment, and that person is Representative Barbara Lee. 

The appointment would give Lee the advantage of incumbency, but it would also fulfill Newsom's comment in 2021 that he would replace Senator Feinstein with a Black woman if she were to retire before the end of her term. Though his comment suggests identity politics over merit, Barbara Lee is as historic a figure in Congress as anyone, and way more so than most. She is highly qualified to replace the aged and forgetful Senator who is currently not present to fulfill her duties.

Katie Porter has Competition as Lee and Schiff Say They are Candidates for Senate Seat

After Katie Porter made it clear to Dianne Feinstein that it was time for the 89-year-old, six term senator to retire when her current term expires in 2024, the establishment wing endorsed that with Barbara Lee telling colleagues the day after Porter declared that she also intends to run for the seat. Adam Schiff followed that with his official announcement that he is a candidate, too. 

Senator Feinstein still has not said that she intended to retire when she is 91 years old, but it is clear that Democrats young and old believe it is time for the ancient ones to move on with their lives. Despite these announcements resulting in a rather ungraceful exit from power for Senator Feinstein, the three candidates are all tremendously accomplished people who are qualified to step into the Senate from the House. 

Barbara Lee is the oldest. She was born in 1946. Schiff, born in 1960, is 14 years younger than Lee. Katie Porter is the youngest of the three. She was born in 1974, which makes her 14 years younger than Schiff.

Katie Porter Announces Dianne Feinstein's Retirement in 2024

Dianne Feinstein is the 89-year-old senator from California who came under fire for using her position for stock trading purposes. She was able to skirt the problem by saying it was her husband who did that. 

Katie Porter is the progressive iconoclast who is famous for using her white board to expose corruption with businesses and rich people. She is currently the representative for the 47th legislative district in California.

Senator Feinstein has not said whether she intends to run for a seventh term when she will be 91 years old, but Katie Porter announced that she is running for her Senate seat in 2024. They will meet in the primary if Feinstein decides to run. 

I Like Elizabeth Warren, but . . .

I don't know exactly when I first learned about Elizabeth Warren, but it was sometime back in the 1980s when I worked in consumer finance. She was one of the bankruptcy experts whose writings on the topic helped me devise the strategies we used to deal with people who declared bankruptcy. Her slant on it was from the angle of consumer protection; we worked with the debtors' attorneys to give their clients and our members fresh starts with the credit union as the primary financial resource. 

Fast forward three decades, and Elizabeth Warren is a senator from Massachusetts who is running for president. She holds the seat that Ted Kennedy once held, but she had to wrest it away from the Republican who won the special election after Senator Kennedy died. She wasn't a politician before that, nor is she a life-long Democrat. She is, however, the most knowledgeable person in Congress about the banking, securities, and insurance industries. Only Representative Katie Porter in the House comes close to her knowledge on how all these things work, and Porter is a freshman.