Opinion: The Feinstein dilemma: When is a lawmaker no longer able to serve?

Good morning. I’m Kerry Cavanaugh, assistant editorial page editor, filling in for Paul Thornton. It is Saturday, May 20. Let’s look back at the week in Opinion.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein has returned to Washington after a prolonged absence while she recovered from a bout of shingles, but concerns about her health and capacity to serve continue to shadow her. News reports revealed this week that Feinstein had suffered significant complications from the viral infection, including facial paralysis and encephalitis, which is a swelling of the brain that can leave patients with memory and language deficiencies, among other problems.

It didn’t help quell concerns when Times reporter Benjamin Oreskes came upon Feinstein in the halls of the U.S. Capitol and asked a softball question about the well-wishes she had received from her Senate colleagues since her return. Feinstein seemed to forget she’d been gone at all.

“I haven’t been gone,” she told him. “I’ve been working.”

While Feinstein was recuperating in San Francisco, there were columns and editorials, including in The Times, declaring that if she couldn’t return to Washington to fulfill her job, she should resign. Well, she’s back in Washington and casting votes. But there are still plenty of uncomfortable questions about her ability to serve, given her frail health and concerns about her mental acuity.

It’s true Feinstein is doing exactly what Democrats want right now: helping confirm President Biden’s judicial nominees in the closely divided Senate. She’ll be a reliable vote when or if there is a debt ceiling deal. And her seniority in the Senate means her office can still bring home the bacon for California.

But is a reliable vote enough for the next year and a half, until her term ends in January 2025?

Not in this political moment, UC Law San Francisco professor Joan C. Williams writes in an op-ed urging Feinstein to resign. “There is no cushion, no wiggle room for a ‘lighter schedule’ with so much at stake for democracy and with your party working with such a slim majority in the upper house,” Williams said.

Not so fast, argues Time magazine Washington correspondent Philip Elliott in a column headlined “Why Dianne Feinstein Shouldn’t Quit.” If she resigns, Elliott wrote, there is no guarantee Republicans would allow Democrats to replace her on the Judiciary Committee, thus slowing or stopping Biden’s judicial picks, which would be devastating to Democrats if there was suddenly a Supreme Court vacancy.

And as long as Feinstein stays in office, she lets California politicians avoid the political earthquake that her resignation would trigger, starting with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s decision over whom to appoint as her replacement. Columnist Nicholas Goldberg, parsing the public statements of her would-be successors, says that “what I suspect they really care about even more than whether she’s on the mend is how her choices about staying on or resigning will affect their upcoming race.”

Why doesn’t California put more solar panels along highways and parking lots? It seems like a good way to boost the state’s renewable energy output, says The Times’ editorial board in support of a state Senate bill that would “start to unlock the potential along California’s 15,000 miles of state highways” for solar panels, battery storage and transmission lines. “This is such a commonsense idea that it’s surprising to learn California isn’t already doing it.” L.A. Times

Taking Ozempic to lose weight is all the rage, but so is the fight for fat acceptance. Robin Abcarian ponders contradictory media messages in this cultural moment: Value and appreciate people of all sizes, while still valorizing thinness in innumerable, harmful ways. “I want to be a warrior in the fat liberation movement, but I struggle to be. I silently judge the size of others all the time, a quality I find really distasteful in myself.” L.A. Times

L.A. County’s juvenile hall problem? It’s not the buildings. Next week the Board of State and Community Corrections is expected to decide that at least one of two Los Angeles County juvenile halls must close. The youths will likely be moved to the reopened Los Padrinos facility in Downey. But county leaders are fooling themselves if they think a change of buildings will keep the kids safe, the editorial board wrote. “The problem with Nidorf and Central is not the physical structures. It’s the way they have been mismanaged, improperly staffed and ineptly supervised. The dysfunctional administrative culture currently plaguing the two doomed juvenile halls will simply follow the youths to Los Padrinos.” L.A. Times

The best way to deal with the debt ceiling: Ignore it. Once the U.S. hits the debt ceiling, President Biden will bump into a constitutional obstacle no matter what he does, law professors Neil H. Buchanan and Michael C. Dorf write. “If all his options are unconstitutional, he should choose the least unconstitutional option. So which unconstitutional option — unilaterally raising taxes, disobeying spending laws or borrowing beyond the debt ceiling — is the least unconstitutional?” L.A. Times

Shouting down racists isn’t effective. Gen Z needs to find another way. Columnist Jean Guerrero urges young liberals to learn to communicate productively, placing more value on dialogue and less on derogatory judgments that are known to alienate their peers. “Gen Z Republicans are much more socially liberal than their parents. If anybody on the right is open to persuasion, it’s them. If they’re attacked as bigots, they’re more likely to double down on harmful beliefs, including the idea that they’re the real victims of oppression.” L.A. Times