Can someone give a QRD on all of the political ramifications that will come from this? I've heard things about judges being harder to appoint, what else is there?
That said, I wouldn't expect it to prevent a pretty quick replacement if Senate business demands it, so it likely won't be a significant impact from a political or operational perspective.
Is that something he has actually said?
> “Yes. Interim appointment. I don’t want to get involved in the primary,” Newsom said. “It would be completely unfair to the Democrats that have worked their tail off. That primary is just a matter of months away. I don’t want to tip the balance of that.”
Like yes there are a lot of self-imposed rules in the Senaate, but it's fundamentally on the Democrats that they can't pull together 51 votes to tweak the rules.
Doesn't change that they won't do anything, of course. :|
This means judicial nominations are effectively hamstrung for the time being.
That was in the case of a retirement. This is a death and reappointment. I am unsure if the new Senator would assume Sen Feinstein's previous committee assignments, but all of my instincts around the Senate say no. So we are back in the position of relying on the GOP to allow the new Senator to fully serve and represent the 39 million citizens of California. If you know anything about the modern GOP and their despise for democracy, you know they will never let that happen.
Sorry, California, the 39 million of you only get 1.3 senators for the next 15 months. The 576 thousand people of Wyoming will still get their full 2.
Caveat - I'm not American and have never taken a US history class. This is just something I heard on a podcast.
Also, the intended function of the Senate was to oversee process and senators were selected by state legislators. They are not supposed to originate legislation. But it got a bit twisted up since then.
California can appoint an interim Senator (per their constitutional & laws - I believe the governor does it without any approval from other parties).
Committee appointment is by Senate rules. There's no automatic right to a seat on a committee. Judiciary is a massively important committee because it oversees the approval of federal judges (without committee approval, the nominees never get to the floor for a vote).
The GOP can block a committee replacement via filibuster. The Democrats could attempt a rules package to prevent filibuster, but Manchin (D-WV) has historically been against those.
The purpose of a senator is to represent the state, not the people. That's why in the US Constitution it says that senators will be elected by state legislators (later changed by the 17th amendment to be elected by the people).
Representatives represent the people. That's why the number of representatives is proportional to the population of the state, and the senators are proportional to the states (there's approx. 1 state per state).
No they get two. Just as Wyoming, which is how the country has always worked and is the only reason the country exists in the first place. I’ve no idea where you pulled “1.3” from but this has always been and remains such an insufferable talking point from left leaning people, the United States is just that, a republican union of states, larger states specifically should not be able to impose their rule on smaller states.
But, her death leaves her committee seats open. Filling those seats will take time and where she was in a leadership position, that needs resolved. Committees often have a 1-vote edge to the majority party, so those committees may be effectively deadlocked until replacements are nominated/approved (this is almost exclusively a Senate task - so can the Democratic leadership in the Senate get new members into committees in a timely manner).
Edit - typos
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/05/03/how-do-st...