Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) announced an end to her more than 30 years in the Senate this week, not with a bang, but with a confused exchange with reporters in the halls of the Capitol.
Feinstein, 89, corrected reporters who asked about a statement released by her office moments earlier that revealed her intention to retire when her term ends next year.
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“If I haven't made that decision, I haven't released anything,” Feinstein told reporters, only to be informed by an aide that she had, in fact, sent out a press release.
The episode was the latest in an unceremonious fall from grace for the Senate's longest-serving female senator, who, despite being hailed as a "titan" of the upper chamber, faced pressure from inside her own party to resign.
Perhaps the most striking lack of deference came from the Democrats hoping to replace her.
Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA) launched her campaign for the seat more than a month before Feinstein officially announced her intention to retire.
Some Democrats chided Porter for the timing of the campaign announcement — but not because it preceded Feinstein’s retirement decision. Instead, their criticism mainly focused on the fact that Porter launched her bid while deadly storms ravaged her state.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) followed suit a few days later, becoming the second high-profile candidate to formalize interest in a race that several other Democrats have publicly flirted with entering.
And in a decisive demonstration of the party’s readiness to move on, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi threw her support behind Schiff earlier this month, conditioning her endorsement on Feinstein’s decision but sending a clear signal to Democrats about the race.
“I think it is disrespectful to the senator and to her legacy,” John Feehery, a Republican strategist and former top aide to then-House Speaker Dennis Hastert, told the Washington Examiner. “But I also think it is effective because she is clearly too old to do her job.”
“They did the same thing with Justice [Stephen] Breyer,” Feehery added, referring to the retirement of the Democrat-appointed Supreme Court justice last year at the urging of some Democrats. “The question I have is: Why won’t they do this with Biden?”
Democrats began to maneuver around an aging Feinstein years before her retirement announcement.
Liberal activists lobbied Feinstein to step down from her post as the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2020, which she did after the election that year but before a pair of runoffs in Georgia determined whether she was relinquishing a chairmanship or a ranking member position.
Those activists were concerned about her age and her record of working across the aisle.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom stirred rumors of Feinstein’s exit last year when he commented that he already had a list of potential appointees prepared in the event that Feinstein resigned before the end of her term. He also said he would select a black woman to replace her.
The incident prompted Feinstein to deny any plans to retire early.
Media reports began surfacing in 2020 that described a lawmaker struggling to keep up with the job's demands.
People familiar with her condition “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 New Yorker reported in December 2020.
Reports at the time suggested Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) had discussed the prospect of stepping down and the realities of her cognitive decline with Feinstein, only to have her forget about his overtures.
Former Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, who served for more than two decades alongside Feinstein representing California, appeared to nudge Feinstein toward retiring in September 2021.
“From the slew of anonymously sourced stories raising questions about her fitness to serve, the political knives have been out for Sen. Feinstein in Democratic circles for some time,” Colin Reed, a Republican strategist, told the Washington Examiner. “Surely, there was a better exit strategy for someone once revered by her party as an iconic trailblazer, especially in a state as blue as California with next-to-no chance of choosing a Republican as her replacement.”
“Sen. Feinstein’s real sin was not a decision to stay in office too long, but her refusal to go along with her party’s hard-left bent,” Reed added.
Indeed, Feinstein faced fierce criticism from the Left when she ended the confirmation hearing for Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett in 2020 by praising Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee and hugging its GOP chairman, Sen. Lindsey Graham (SC).
Progressives also lambasted Feinstein for resisting a liberal push to eliminate the filibuster. Still, Democratic colleagues of Feinstein had kind words for her this week upon news of her retirement.
“She is truly a lion, a lioness, of the Senate," Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) told the Washington Examiner.
Of Democrats' early entry into the race to replace her, Blumenthal said he didn't make any more of it than “any of the other Senate races where prospective candidates are ahead of the formal retirement.”
Feinstein’s decision to step aside, at last, creates an opportunity for progressives to seek a senator from California who more accurately reflects the liberal bent of their state. Democrats are all but guaranteed to keep the Senate seat in their hands, and the emerging primary field could quickly become a test of who can lurch the furthest to the Left.
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Feinstein is not the only senior Democrat to face the ignominy of watching a primary field take shape in the race to succeed her before formally exiting the arena.
Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) was reportedly insulted in 2015 when then-Newark Mayor Cory Booker announced his intention to run for Lautenberg's seat before the longtime senator said he planned to retire.