There Is Zero Reason For Republicans To Cooperate With Dianne Feinstein’s Request

Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s staff asked the Senate majority leader to temporarily replace her on the Judiciary Committee as she has been absent for approaching two months due to health issues. According to her staff, Feinstein is no longer able to perform her duties as a U.S. senator. This is not surprising, considering she is 89 years old.

Feinstein’s mental decline has been known on Capitol Hill for years, with staff guiding her around the halls. The reality is, the Democratic Party’s judicial agenda had been stalled due to Feinstein and Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, and it was not until her California colleague Rep. Ro Khanna publicly called for her resignation that she asked to be temporarily replaced in her duties on the essential committee.

Democrats are eager to comply, but are Republicans so eager? They should not cooperate with Schumer and the president on their judicial agenda, either tactically, politically or even morally. Republicans have the power, too – Committee assignments are decided at the beginning of the session, either by unanimous consent or, if contested, by the vote of at least 60 senators.

If one senator says no, the whole thing has to come to a vote. Getting nine other Republicans to join Senator Mitt Romney might prove more difficult, and persuading 10 Republicans to cooperate with the president’s judicial agenda will prove even more difficult if Sen. Mitch McConnell holds the line. There’s zero reason for Republicans to continue to cooperate with the president’s judicial agenda when an essentially lawless administration is seeding the court with the types of judges who will uphold their lawlessness.

Weak-kneed Republicans might suggest that not cooperating with the Democrats on this issue would be poor form or set a bad precedent. However, mild-mannered Brett Kavanaugh was falsely accused of being a serial rapist in front of the entire country. Poor form, bad precedents? Those ideas hold little sway in the context of today’s political battles.

If left-wing activists and their allies in the press had their way, the “blue slip” tradition that allows senators to hold up nominees from their own states would be abolished. There is no evidence that any Republican would be given the same quarter if one of them threw themselves upon their colleagues’ mercy. The Democratic Senate has declined to even deliberate on judicial nominees, with no debate, no regular order, on the White House’s list of new judges, just a simple vote to move them through.

Without any procedural normalcy, returned comitatus, or shared judicial philosophies, there are no reasons to continue to cooperate with the president’s judicial agenda. Republicans have nothing to lose from resisting Democrats’ push to replace Feinstein and everything to gain. This battle is far too deep in the weeds for independent voters to care, Democratic voters are already motivated against Republicans enough, and Republican voters are inclined to reward a little courage in the fight.

The GOP did not make this situation – the Democrats put an 89-year-old woman and an emotionally and mentally traumatized man into the U.S. Senate in the name of pure power politics. That play is not working out for them. Republicans can let them rally away, but they’d be fools to let them confirm.