Race-based preferences are taking over the competition for Dianne Feinstein’s California Senate seat.
On Thursday, The New York Times revealed Feinstein surrendered power of attorney to her daughter in a report on the 90-year-old senator’s failing health. The longtime legacy lawmaker is unable to make legal decisions of her own while making major legal decisions for the country.
Last week, an episode at a Senate appropriation hearing amplified concerns about Feinstein’s cognitive decline. During a markup of a defense appropriations bill, a confused Feinstein started to deliver a speech on the legislation when committee members were merely voting.
“I would like to support a ‘yes’ vote on this,” Feinstein began before Washington Democrat Sen. Patty Murray, the chair of the committee, interrupted and coached her California colleague to “just say ‘aye.’”
The hearing was just the latest in a string of events escalating calls for Feinstein, an institution in California politics, to relinquish her seat in the upper chamber. Questions surrounding the senator’s age and aptitude to serve have been around since at least 2020 when The New Yorker published an article quoting anonymous aides highlighting concerns about Feinstein’s memory.
“They say her short-term memory has grown so poor that she often forgets she has been briefed on a topic, accusing her staff of failing to do so just after they have,” the magazine reported. “They describe Feinstein as forgetting what she has said and getting upset when she can’t keep up.”
Similar reports followed in the Times
