The Senate reconvened Monday after a weekslong recess, and the chamber welcomed some previously absent senators, like Republican Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Democrat John Fetterman of Pennsylvania.
Still, the Democrats are missing one key member critical to President Joe Biden’s agenda: California Democrat Dianne Feinstein. With Feinstein missing, the Judiciary Committee is falling one Dem vote short of the threshold needed to push judicial nominees onto the Senate floor.
Feinstein has asked Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to put a temporary replacement on the committee since she is too ill to perform her job… but the Senate Republicans have other plans.
McConnell called the effort to place a substitute on the panel “an extremely unusual” request with no known precedent and said they will not cooperate.
Either Feinstein is capable of working, or she isn’t.
The Senate GOP’s leader said Tuesday that Republicans won’t allow Democrats to temporarily replace California Sen. Dianne Feinstein on the Senate Judiciary Committee. He argued that Schumer only wants a stand-in to push through the most partisan judges.
“Let’s be clear,” said McConnell in remarks on the Senate floor. “Senate Republicans will not take part in sidelining a temporarily absent colleague off a committee just so Democrats can force through their very worst nominees.”
For the last two years, Feinstein has helped the Senate to rubber-stamp President Joe Biden’s judges.
As of Monday, the Senate has already approved 119 Biden nominees, compared to 329 total Obama nominees and 234 total Trump nominees. In other words, Biden is outpacing his two immediate predecessors. He’s also nominated 38 judges still awaiting action in the Senate.
“I can’t consider nominees in these circumstances because a tie vote is a losing vote in committee,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin, D-Ill., told CNN. “We still have some nominees left on the calendar that we can work on … But we have more in the wings that we would like to process through the committee.”
The Senate remains divided 51-49, and it would need 60 votes to replace Feinstein on the committee. And Republicans aren’t playing the Democrats’ games.
McConnell’s comments came after several Republican senators said on Monday that they wouldn’t support the Democratic plan because they don’t want to help Democrats confirm liberal judges.
Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Chuck Grassley of Iowa said they think Democrats are pressuring Feinstein to resign unfairly.
Collins said that she and Feinstein are good friends, and she thinks there has been a “concerted campaign” to push her off the judiciary committee. “I will have no part of that,” Collins said.
Feinstein has come under increasing pressure to resign or step down from her duties. While she has defended her effectiveness, she has faced questions in recent years about her cognitive health and memory, and has appeared increasingly frail.
In 2020, she said she would not serve as the top Democrat on the judiciary panel after criticism from liberals about her handling of Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation. Earlier this year, she said she would not serve as the Senate president pro tempore, or the most senior member of the majority party, even though she was in line to do so. The president pro tempore opens the Senate every day and holds other ceremonial duties.
Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, a longtime member of the panel who is only two months younger than Feinstein, chastised Democrats for denying Feinstein the opportunity to become chairman of the committee and trying to force her out of office “because she’s old.”
“I don’t intend to give credence to that sort of anti-human treatment,” the elderly Grassley said.
If Feinstein were to resign immediately, the process would be much easier for Democrats. After a Feinstein resignation, California Gov. Gavin Newsom would appoint a replacement, just as he did after former Sen. Kamala Harris’ ascension to the vice presidency.
The Senate regularly approves committee assignments for new senators after their predecessors have resigned. But asking for a temporary replacement due to illness is a rare, if not unprecedented, request.
Some Democrats have called for her full resignation. Her statement asking for a temporary substitute came shortly after Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., called on her to resign from the Senate, saying it is “unacceptable” for her to miss votes to confirm judges who could be weighing in on abortion rights, a key Democratic priority.
Another member of the California delegation, Democratic Rep. Pete Aguilar, said Tuesday that Feinstein is “a legend in California politics and a legend in the Senate chamber” but that her vote will be needed as Congress tries to figure out how to raise the debt ceiling this year.
“I will say that our expectation as House Democrats is that every senator is going to need to participate,” he said, adding that “she should get to choose that timeline.”
Asked if Feinstein should resign, Durbin said Monday that “I’m not going to push her into any other decision.” Durbin had previously expressed frustration about his committee’s stalled nominees.
Durbin appealed to his Republican colleagues to “show a little kindness and caring for their colleague.”
If the Senate votes to replace her on the panel, “I think we can take care of this issue, do it very quickly,” Durbin said. “I hope we can find 10 Republicans who will join us in that effort.”
The Senate is already dealing with a backlog of 38 judges appointed by Biden.
The Horn editorial team and the Associated Press contributed to this article.