This week, Hillary Clinton weighed in on an issue that has dogged Senate Democrats and much of her party for months: Will California Sen. Dianne Feinstein Should resign as her growing health problems are making it difficult for her to perform her duties.
Mrs. Clinton’s answer was no — but based largely on expectations that Republicans would take advantage of the vacancy, not on an assessment of Ms. Feinstein’s health or performance.
“It’s a dilemma: If she retires, the Republicans won’t agree to add someone else to the Judiciary Committee,” she told Time magazine on Monday, in interview published on tuesday night“I want you to think about how bad that is. I don’t know if she really wants to or doesn’t want to, but right now, she can’t. Because if we’re going to get the judge confirmed, that’s the most important thing we’ll take on. One of the continuing obligations, then we cannot leave her seat vacant.”
Mrs Clinton said her answer could have been different “if the Republicans had said and done decent things”. But, she added, “they don’t say that.”
Ms Feinstein is recovering From shingles, encephalitis, and Ramsay Hunter syndrome, all of which kept her out of the Senate for more than two months until early May.she have been experiencing amnesia Facing some calls for her to step down even before her latest health problems arose. But it was her recent absence that has prevented Democrats from advancing some judicial nominations, causing those calls to spread from most left-leaning voters to even a handful of Democratic colleagues in Congress.
In response to mounting pressure, Ms. Feinstein asked in April to be temporarily removed from the Judiciary Committee, but Senate Republicans refused.
It was unclear whether Republicans would keep the seat if Ms. Feinstein resigned. At least one Republican senator who opposed the interim replacement, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, explain He would support a permanent replacement. Refusal to fill an official vacancy is more of a violation of precedent than a refusal to fill an informal one.
But given Senate Republicans’ own precedent — they refused to let President Barack Obama fill the Supreme Court vacancy in 2016 on the grounds that the next election was too close, and then let President Donald J. Filling vacancies and the 2020 election – Mrs Clinton’s concerns are not unfounded.