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Dianne Feinstein has died

nytimes.com

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Re: Dianne Feinstein has died

#161

Post by argiopetech »

mc32 wrote: post #116
seanw444 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Professionals" arbitrarily deciding whose psychological functions are passable in order to allow an elected person to take office sounds horrendous to me, impartial panel or not. If there's anything 2020-2021 and the 4th branch of the gov't taught me, it's that we need to quit putting authority figures in positions of power over the people, for the sole reason of being an authority figure.

Why? I don’t want people with decreased mental abilities serving in important gov positions. Do public companies let aging incompetent leaders stay on as senior executives? I'm not asking for stringent qualifications. Bare minimum. Have time awareness, place awareness, be aware of the connection between action and consequences, have control over bodily functions. I'm not asking for a Chess champion or math wiz.

I also don't want people with decreased mental abilities representing me in government, so I don't vote for them to be elected to those positions. The people of California elected Senator Feinstein for years, so they get what they voted for.

Edit: I don't disagree with you in theory, but I don't think the system you propose is practicable.

Re: Dianne Feinstein has died

#162

Post by unethical_ban »

From a NYTimes update thread:

"Colleagues, critics and an increasingly restive field of aspiring successors have questioned her health and fitness for office — a concern, her supporters noted, that few have raised for male octogenarians in the Senate — but friends said she made her decision on her own timetable."

Proof is in the pudding, eh? But more seriously, plenty have criticized McConnell for his public health lapses, and the two of them together kicked off a lot of bipartisan (citizen) grumbling about old politicians. Then of course our main presidential candidates...

The kerfuffle about sexism when criticizing Feinstein is hogwash.

I don't know her full legacy, and I recall her being a good thorn in the side of Bush when he needed one. Sad it took this event to get a replacement.

And Newsom promised to put in a black woman, but also promised not to put in someone actually running for Senate. I wonder if the relevant groups of citizens care about that declaration.

Re: Dianne Feinstein has died

#164

Post by flagrant_taco »

hedora wrote: post #149
flagrant_taco wrote: post #75

I 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 wo…

Oh I'm all for anything that can be done to prevent politicians from getting rich through insider trading, "gifts", favors, and happening into fortunes just after leaving office.

I see that as a different problem to solve, but yeah if the solution to one can supercede the other I'd get behind that.

Re: Dianne Feinstein has died

#166

Post by abeppu »

all2 wrote: post #130
mc32 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? I don’t want people with decreased mental abilities serving in important gov positions. Do public companies let aging incompetent leaders stay on as senior executives? I'm not asking for stringent qualifications. Bare minimum. Have time awareness, place awareness, be aware of the connection between action and consequences, have control over bodily functions. I'm not asking for a Chess champion or math wiz.

So vote. Or better yet, run for office. Be the change you want to see.

Publicly advocating for a policy change is also part of how democracies work. The "just vote" response as a mode of "don't talk about policy ideas" is silly for this reason; _how_ we vote is informed by our conversations with others, and what policies we put on the table is informed by what we all want and prioritize.

But I think this can't realistically be just an issue of voting or not voting for individual elderly senate candidates, for a couple reasons:

- a 6 year term is a long time, and a lot can change during that period

- tenure in the Senate comes with placement on important committees; if your state wants their legislators in positions of power, you're pressured to allow them to accrue more tenure _so long as legislatures from other states are allowed to do the same_. Institutional-level limits on age or fitness must apply across the board.

- X is too old to serve is literally an ad-hominem attack in any given race and individuals competing for office choose not to use it because making that argument comes with real costs. We _should_ try to keep discourse in these races about policy issues. But retirement ages or fitness standards as an across-the-board policy proposal is an appropriate way to safeguard offices without descending into a personal attack about a person's un-chosen attributes.

Re: Dianne Feinstein has died

#167

Post by capableweb »

nzrf wrote: post #103
brigadier132 wrote: post #56

Earlier 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.

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.”

> I don’t even have really any information to what these government officials do.

For sure you don't, it's the opposite. They sit on so much inside information that people outside the government would never have access to.

Re: Dianne Feinstein has died

#168

Post by flagrant_taco »

bombcar wrote: post #160
stetrain wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think being too “good at the job” is part of what people are worried about for politicians. Yes there are skills to be learned to be effective in such a system, but being too entrenched in it can lead to forming relationships that overshadow the relationship with their constituents.

What we've seen is term limits just result in the "party machine" really running the seat, as the warm body is replaced time and time again. Term limits are effective against populists, for whatever that's worth.

Term limits definitely come with very real tradeoffs. I'd argue, though, that if the machine is that corrupt it doesn't matter what we do with politicians.

What you're describing sounds to me like the politicians are inconsequential puppets and the machine must be limited or removed. I could a tuallg get behind that idea, it wouldn't take much to convince me that term limits don't go after the real problem.

Re: Dianne Feinstein has died

#169

Post by layer8 »

tristor wrote: post #148
layer8 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

“We” don’t set it though. They do.

Re: Dianne Feinstein has died

#170

Post by justrealist »

bandyaboot wrote: post #84
eropple wrote: post #4

Earlier 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.

The Republicans can't block anything unless the democrats agree to allow it.

Like yes there are a lot of self-imposed rules in the Senaate, but it's fundamentally on the Democrats that they can't pull together 51 votes to tweak the rules.

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