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Dianne Feinstein has died
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Re: Dianne Feinstein has died
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a rewrite of history. She was basically trapped in the job when the Senate refused to appoint Obama's pick to fill the vacant seat of Scalia. If she had retired it would have just been two empty seats for Trump to fill quicker. People were actively asking her to stay in the job. Feinstein was a democratic senator in a democratic state with a democratic governor. She was actively being told she was unfit. She…
You understand that there were years before 2016, right? In some of them, Democrats outnumbered Republicans in Congress. I still remember the plethora of articles about RBG's supercool workout regimen dating back to the early 2010s because she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2009 . The fixation on her health was largely because everyone knew this woman was getting ready to kick the bucket at some point, but s…
This is true, but the same time, she was 79 in 2012, which was also the AVERAGE life expectancy at the time. And you would think the wealthy well connected 'important' members of society have a noticeably longer life expectancy.
Re: Dianne Feinstein has died
#103So sad to lose such a great stock trader! - https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/as-feinstein... - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_congressional_insider_tra... - https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/14/dianne-feinstein-hu... etc.
All these senators that manage to make tens of millions of dollars on their $250k salary should really release personal finance books.
As someone who is just engineer / architect and has to have all my trades approved and accounts granted access to reporting for not only my self but my partner. it really annoys me that these folks are not under more scrutiny. I don’t even have really any information to what these government officials do.
This to me falls under the “rules for thee not me.”
Re: Dianne Feinstein has died
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
I encourage you to run a campaign, just in a local county. You will find there are things one can't see from the outside that make this sentiment naively false.
List them here! You aren't actually saying anything.
My wife was part of a congressional primary campaign so I got to see some of this close-up. It’s hard to list all the reasons, but there is definitely a sort of institutional inertia that makes it hard to primary someone on the story of merely being the better candidate, unless there is an a prior consensus among voters that the incumbent needs to go.
Some examples:
- Congressional elections are expensive; incumbents have deeper-rooted donor networks to tap.
- Civic groups that are already working with the incumbent want to continue the relationship.
- General voter apathy around primary elections; even regular voters often skip primaries so finding people who will actually vote gets harder.
- Name recognition; if someone shows up to the polls to vote for another ballot item but hasn't followed the congressional race, they'll probably put a box next to the incumbent unless they have a particular reason not to.
I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing -- high turnover of elected officials is disruptive to the system -- but there are clearly cases in which it overcorrects.
Re: Dianne Feinstein has died
#105I know the easy approach here is for people to want an age limit in Congress, but I've always been more partial to a term limit. I'm sure there are plenty of hypotheses as to why this happens, but whatever the cause elected officials seem to have an extremely easy go of getting re-elected these days. The increasing average age in Congress is just a side effect of that in my opinion.
My problem with term limits is being a politician is a job like any other. You get a performance review every few years. But by the time you get really good at the job you're forced to quit.
If there are age minimums for these federal offices there should be age maximums.
Re: Dianne Feinstein has died
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
Between her and McConnell and the other gerontocrats in Washington, I’m really baffled. Why do these people grip the reins of power until their knuckles turn white? What is so important about political horse trading that they have to literally haul you out of office on a stretcher?
Why does everyone keep reelecting them? Vote for someone else. We also need a better voting system than first past the post.
All other things being equal it is in their best interest to re-elect the incumbent. Seniority and connections figure into what posts you get and what influence you have. McConnell's and Feinstein's constituents have an outsized influence on the proceedings. Why would Kentuckians cede control of the Senate in favor of a politician, no matter how skilled, who had zero seniority?
I'm not especially in favor of short term limits, since there is a benefit to politicians with experience. But I'd definitely consider options that better balance their reasonable desire to elect experienced and influential candidates with the very heavy hand that experience puts on everybody else.
Re: Dianne Feinstein has died
#107I know the easy approach here is for people to want an age limit in Congress, but I've always been more partial to a term limit. I'm sure there are plenty of hypotheses as to why this happens, but whatever the cause elected officials seem to have an extremely easy go of getting re-elected these days. The increasing average age in Congress is just a side effect of that in my opinion.
If I had a magic wand:
1- One six-year term on the presidency. Enough time to get stuff done and see the results, but then you're out. The current structure gives the American public 1-2 years of productivity, then they go into campaign mode on the tax payers dime.
2- All official party nominees get the exact same budget for campaigning. Creates a level playing field and neutralizes the power of lobbying
3- Congressman, Senators, Governors are limited to a single 6 year term. This will create a lot of churn, require voters to get engaged to understand the candidates better, and eliminate lifetime politicians who will inevitably be corrupted (I'm a cynic).
Need to ponder how to hedge the power of the people behind the scenes who support the office since they are unelected and undoubtedly powerful (I'm thinking about the people writing Biden's scripts, who are they, who elected them, what do they believ, etc.... we know he isn't doing it).
Re: Dianne Feinstein has died
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tests for public participation have a real, real bad history, and for good reason. Age is a simple and objective measure.
I agree. It is just that people's facilities fall off at different rates, but as others pointed out, it is hard to make an objective test that also can not be gamed.
There's nothing to prevent an older politician from advising their colleagues, serving on committee staffs or even lobbying. They're not prevented from participantion, they'd be prevented from being elected.
Re: Dianne Feinstein has died
#109She was mentally unfit to serve for the last couple years. It was a travesty many countries seem to have no mental bar required to serve or even reasonable age limits (Feinstein was 90!) Any decision "she" was made in the last couple years was made by her aids and not her. This is not how democracy is supposed to work. Details: > Four U.S. senators, including three Democrats, as well as three former Feinstein staffer…
Between her and McConnell and the other gerontocrats in Washington, I’m really baffled. Why do these people grip the reins of power until their knuckles turn white? What is so important about political horse trading that they have to literally haul you out of office on a stretcher?
First, some places, like in McConnell's case, are just statistically going to go to a particular party, due to demographics (or gerrymandering), and primary elections famously don't draw people to the polls (if there's a challenger at all).
California and senate elections are slightly better in that regard, however, look at how much money Feinstein was able to raise over her opponents. This is nothing special about Feinstein, it's an advantage incumbents generally enjoy:
https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/dianne-feins...
I think getting this money out of politics is a start to ensuring elections are based on the candidate themselves & their policies and less around how much special interests already have invested in them. I don't have any ideas about how to get more people to show up specifically for primary elections, but the ideas people have around getting more people to vote in general elections could help, like expanding absentee voting, making it a holiday, etc.