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Analysis: Newsom just tried to shove Feinstein out the door

Asked on Monday night about his thought about a possible replacement for Feinstein, Newsom decided not to dodge — like most politicians would. Here’s the exchange between Newsom and MSNBC’s Joy Reid:

Reid: If, in fact, Dianne Feinstein were to retire, will you nominate an African-American woman to restore the seat that Kamala Harris is no longer in the United States Senate? And do you have a name in mind?

Newsom: I have multiple names in mind.

Reid: It can be yes — answer yes or no.

Newsom: We have multiple names in mind, and the answer is yes.

If you are Feinstein, Newsom’s comments have to make you very, very unhappy. Because what Reid is proposing here is not a Feinstein retirement but rather a Feinstein resignation or the California Democratic senator, who is 87, leaving office before her term ends.

See, if Feinstein simply decides not to run again in 2024, Newsom would have no role in replacing her. There would simply be an open seat race. But if the seat came vacant before 2024, then Newsom — assuming he survives a likely recall effort this year and can get reelected in 2022 — would be able to appoint her replacement. (Newsom appointed Sen. Alex Padilla to the seat vacated by now Vice President Kamala Harris in late 2020.)

The thing is: Feinstein has given zero indication that she plans to leave before her term is up. “The senator has no plans to step down,” a Feinstein aide told CNN’s Ted Barrett on Tuesday — in the wake of Newsom’s comments.

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“There’s nothing to it,” Feinstein told CNN on Tuesday about Newsom’s remarks. “No,” she said when asked if she would retire before the end of her six-year term. “I have not discussed that with anybody, nobody has asked me any questions about it.”

What Newsom’s willingness to engage with a question about appointing a replacement to Feinstein amounts to a not-so-subtle push from the governor to the senator to step aside.

It’s that last thing that Feinstein wants to be dealing with after her last few months. As far back as September 2020, Democrats in Washington were voicing their skepticism that Feinstein, at the time the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, was up to the challenge of running the opposition to the nomination of Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett.
As Politico wrote at the time:

“Feinstein sometimes gets confused by reporters’ questions, or will offer different answers to the same question depending on where or when she’s asked. Her appearance is frail. And Feinstein’s genteel demeanor, which seems like it belongs to a bygone Senate era, can lead to trouble with an increasingly hard-line Democratic base uninterested in collegiality or bipartisan platitudes.”

Those fears among liberals were confirmed by the confirmation hearings. “This has been one of the best set of hearings that I’ve participated in,” Feinstein said at the end of the proceedings. “It leaves one with a lot of hopes, a lot of questions and even some ideas perhaps of good bipartisan legislation we can put together.” She then went and hugged Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Lindsey Graham.
Liberals immediately called for her to step aside from her perch atop the Judiciary Committee. Less than three weeks after the 2020 election, Feinstein did just that — ceding her chance to chair the panel when Democrats retook control of the Senate in the January Georgia runoffs.

But in that same announcement, Feinstein seemed to assert that she had no plans of leaving the Senate early. “I will continue to do my utmost to bring about positive change in the coming years,” she said.

What’s Newsom playing at here, then? Well — and stop me if you’ve heard this one before — he’s looking out for his own personal politics.

Newsom drew some heat for picking Padilla to replace Harris rather than replacing her with another African-American woman. And now Newsom faces the likelihood that he will be fighting for his political life later this year — as organizers of an effort to recall him insist they have gathered the requisite signatures to get it on the ballot this fall.
In order to defeat the recall, Newsom needs the Democratic Party base firmly behind him. And there is no bigger pillar in that base than African-American voters. (Just ask Joe Biden!) So in hopes of solidifying his support among that crucial voting bloc, Newsom shoved Feinstein under the bus on Monday night.
Politics, it’s been famously said, ain’t beanbag. But even by that standard, Newsom’s move was a rough one.

CNN’s Manu Raju contributed to this analysis.

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