A hug that divided the Democratic Party: Feinstein could pay a price for Supreme Court hearings
It was a hug and a sound bite that prompted groans among Democrats around the country, with even moderates complaining that Sen. Dianne Feinstein undercut her party’s argument against Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the Supreme Court.
Feinstein’s political blunder? She embraced Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham and commended the hearings he led over Barrett’s nomination, undermining a Democratic contention that the appointment had to wait until the next president’s inauguration.
Progressives say the time to work with Republicans is over, because Republicans don’t fight fairly.
“Republicans play by their own rules, and if you play by their rules, they will then change them when they want to,” said Los Angeles City Councilman Kevin de León, a former leader of California’s state senate and Feinstein’s progressive primary challenger in 2018.
But Democratic moderates are hoping the anger over this particular fight — which they say is justified — will die down and allow Democrats and Republicans to work together.
“I think we’ll put this particular Supreme Court confirmation aside, but we’ll go forward hoping we can work with Republicans ... ” said Rep. Ami Bera, D-Sacramento, who acknowledged the poor “optics” of Feinstein’s embrace. “I hope they’re willing to work with us.”
The disagreement is emblematic of the two forces pulling at the Democratic Party today — moderates who want to work with Republicans and progressives who would rather throw out the filibuster and push through their agenda than find ways to compromise with a group they don’t believe shares their values.
Democrats at Barrett’s hearings had been trying to hammer home that they believed the process lacked legitimacy.
They argued Republicans were rushing through a Supreme Court nominee a month before an election when they had refused to even meet with former President Barack Obama’s nominee, Judge Merrick Garland, after Justice Antonin Scalia’s death in 2016. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, that year held the seat open until Trump could fill it.
Feinstein’s comments before she hugged Graham made many cringe, feeling she gave Republicans a sound byte they could use to trumpet the process as legitimate.
“This has been one of the best set of hearings that I’ve participated in,” said Feinstein, the top Democrat on the committee. “It leaves one with a lot of hopes, a lot of questions and even some ideas perhaps of good bipartisan legislation we can put together.”
Progressive groups lashed out at Feinstein over her comments, with some, including the pro-choice organization NARAL, saying it was time for her to step down from the Judiciary Committee.
It also prompted Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, to say publicly this week that he had a “serious” conversation with Feinstein.
“I had a long and serious talk with Sen. Feinstein. That’s all I’m going to say,” Schumer told reporters, when asked if he planned to make any changes to leadership of the Judiciary Committee.
Republicans defend Feinstein
Republicans, however, jumped to defend the senior senator from California.
“Attacks on Senator Feinstein are totally unjustified,” Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, wrote on Twitter, where he charged that criticism of her reflected “sexist and ageist motivations.”
Feinstein and all other Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee boycotted the vote to confirm Barrett on Thursday morning. Republicans unanimously voted to confirm her without Democrats there, setting up a full Senate vote on her confirmation early next week.
Both Feinstein’s and Schumer’s offices declined to comment for this story, saying they wouldn’t discuss personal conversations between the senators.
Feinstein, first elected in 1992, is a member of the old guard among Senate Democrats, a group that generally avoids showing contempt over political differences.
Bill Carrick, a political consultant to Feinstein, said she was “just being polite” by making those comments during the hearing, and that when Graham moved to hug her she wouldn’t move away.
“What is she supposed to do, jump under the table?” Carrick said.
“I think we’re just in a world where some of the activist groups are so frustrated, with Trump as president and Democrats in the minority in the Senate, that it’s like Russian Roulette, we just start shooting at each other,” he added.
‘The party has definitely gone to the left’
But progressive members of the Democratic Party say there isn’t a place for that anymore.
De León, who has called for ending the filibuster in the Senate so Democrats can pass legislation without Republican help, frequently took Feinstein to task over her willingness to work with Republicans in their 2018 campaign. He says Feinstein doesn’t reflect the current state of the Democratic Party.
“The party has definitely gone to the left, no question about it, but it’s gone to the left because Washington continues to abide by these rules of comity,” de León said. “Meanwhile, people are choking on dirty air, going bankrupt for their health care, and that’s just pre-COVID-19.”
Other Democrats who consider themselves moderate say there is still room for good relationships with Republicans, but the Barrett hearings weren’t one of those times.
Bera said while he prides himself on having good relationships with Republicans and working across the aisle, “the optics of this weren’t great.”
Graham especially angered Democrats because there is a widely circulated video of him saying in 2018 that he would not confirm a Supreme Court justice in the year before an election and to “hold me accountable.” To Democrats, Barrett’s confirmation hearings undermined that pledge.
“There is deep anger at how (Republicans) chose to not even give Merrick Garland a hearing. To not dignify even a hearing back then, then this hypocrisy one month before an actual election,” Bera said. “I think that’s where that anger comes from, and I am a ‘problem solver’ and someone who doesn’t see Republicans as the enemy.”
This story was originally published October 23, 2020 at 5:30 AM with the headline "A hug that divided the Democratic Party: Feinstein could pay a price for Supreme Court hearings."
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