It is nothing shy of disgusting that someone clearly incapable of serving the role of senator dragged her constituents and the country through this till death. Shame on her, her family, and her staff.
Dianne Feinstein has died
141–150 of 377 posts
Re: Dianne Feinstein has died
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are age limits viable in our aging population? I think they may not work because it would exclude so many people and many voters will be aged as well? I think a low bar competency test would be more viable.
I’m fairly certain that percentage will still be less than the number of minors, which no one has a problem with excluding in the same way.
The Church, which is certainly something of a gerontocracy, excludes the elderly Cardinals from Papal elections too. It's not intrinsically unjust anymore than excluding the very young is.
Re: Dianne Feinstein has died
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
The governor of California can turn around an interim appointment pretty quickly if he so chooses; there's some static around a prior promise to appoint a Black woman, which most people viewed as effectively a promise to Representative Barbara Lee. She has since declared candidacy for that Senate seat--as Feinstein was not going to run for re-election--and Newsom (understandably, IMO) doesn't want to hand the keys to…
If I recall correctly, the Republicans can refuse to allow a replacement to be seated on the Judiciary committee…and they certainly will do that if they can.
Senate business can be conducted with the VP as tiebreaker as well, as I understand it? But I could be wrong.
Re: Dianne Feinstein has died
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
Dubious congress trades aside, congresspeople should not die of old age serving. There is something wrong with people like Byrd and Feinstein dying while serving. Even without term limits they should have the decency to know when to call it quits and not become a figurehead where most of the work they’re entrusted with is done behind the scenes by others —none of this bullshit whispering in their ear on how to vote.…
We should seriously consider mandatory retirement ages for all high public offices. We have them in the Foreign Service, and of course it would be bad for a diplomat to be in mental decline while negotiating a complex treaty. Multiple states have retirement ages for judges. The work of a senator or federal judge should be similarly protected from disruption due to the predictable age-related decline of individual off…
The fact that we can even have a discussion around this indicates a fundamental problem with mass-market voting, it's just a popularity contest with certain rules.
It's probably likely that nobody voted for her in the last 20 years, instead voting for the party she represents. And they're probably roughly satisfied with the results, which means she provided little that an AI couldn't have done (a very simple one, something like VOTE=D).
This is likely true of almost all representatives. It's likely hard to find one that you can't simply predict how they will act.
Re: Dianne Feinstein has died
#145I 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.
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Re: Dianne Feinstein has died
#146So 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.
Dubious congress trades aside, congresspeople should not die of old age serving. There is something wrong with people like Byrd and Feinstein dying while serving. Even without term limits they should have the decency to know when to call it quits and not become a figurehead where most of the work they’re entrusted with is done behind the scenes by others —none of this bullshit whispering in their ear on how to vote.…
They should… have the decency? What? Are you familiar with our government?
Re: Dianne Feinstein has died
#147I 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.
I don't see a need for term limits- as long as they keep being popular and able to do the job, they should do it. I see a need for impartial testing of "able to do the job", such as "can count backwards from 20 without falling asleep or missing any numbers or going briefly catatonic".
My main concern without term limits is when an elected official moves from being popular and effective at their job to being effective at getting reelected. Those are very different skills, with the latter risking politicians that are only reelected because of the power, favors, and connections they have collected.
Term limits definitely aren't a magic fix, I just see the tradeoffs as worth it relative to my personal concerns.
Re: Dianne Feinstein has died
#148I know it’s rude to say negative things about a person who has just passed, but I can’t help feeling happy that such an influential Senate seat will finally go to someone that’s not over 70 (hopefully). There should be age limits for public office and it should match whatever we consider the retirement age to be. We have too many dusty old codgers running things and ruining things, clawing at power and money while de…
> it should match whatever we consider the retirement age to be. That would create wrong incentives for pushing the retirement age upwards though.
Then we set it to 65, means the last Senate term has them exiting at 71.
People over 70 should not be running the country, and currently the median Congressperson is on social security. We have a problem.
Re: Dianne Feinstein has died
#149I 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.
Instead of term limits, I’d much rather they be paid a 99% percentile wage until death, but be banned from accepting any other income or gifts, investing in stocks or owning any sort of business or investment property (again, for life).
It might be better to lower the income to 90th or 50th percentile, so only people that actually wanted the job would take it.
Ideally, the restrictions would extend to the kids. It would definitely extend to the spouses.
Also, all no campaign donations over $50. Finally, all campaign communications must be publicly archived in realtime, and no more political ads. (The latter is because some politicians now tell different, personalized lies to each constituent, thanks to the internet).
Another possibility is to let anyone volunteer for congress, then pick the winner at random from the pool each term. This worked amazingly well for local positions in some country that tried it. (Government efficiency immediately doubled or something.)
Re: Dianne Feinstein has died
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
All these senators that manage to make tens of millions of dollars on their $250k salary should really release personal finance books.
To be fair, Senator Feinstein was married to a guy who ran his own equity capital investment management firm so it's not like we can assume her personal wealth is all derived from investing her salary.
Well no, because of compound interest.