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Comment by belluchan | Hacker News Reader

Feinstein beyond reproach. She's probably too old to run again and she just won her election. She's a lame duck with a ton of power. She can take the flak I think with no repercussions.

I also don't think she's lied. She's been open about her position. I don't agree with it, but I don't think she's ever misrepresented herself.

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Feinstein's lies to the public come in the form of her "reform" bill which purports to prohibit mass surveillance but actually codifies it into law.

https://action.eff.org/o/9042/p/dia/action3/common/public/?a...

She has also adopted the NSA's deceptive language that collection is not surveillance when she says the NSA is not spying on Americans.

Feinstein has been like this forever, but she's in a seat where the electorate would rather vote for a Democrat that eats babies over a moderate Republican.

California elects republicans statewide all the time. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Pete Wilson, a Senator can win too. Not that I would want them to.

> California elects republicans statewide all the time.

Well, California has an unusually large number of separately elected Statewide officers, but for the big three statewide offices (Governor and the two US Senators), "all the time" would be something of an exaggeration. In the last 19 years, Arnold Schwarzenegger's reelection as Governor is the only time a Republican has been elected to one of those big-3 statewide offices in a normal election.

> Arnold Schwarzenegger,

Arnold Schwarzenegger was first elected in a recall election which uses different procedures (an open plurality election with no primary to filter the field, with a side-by-side majority vote on the same ballot for actually recalling the incumbent -- more people voted for the incumbent Democrat to be retained than voted for the Republican Schwarzenegger to replace him.)

> Pete Wilson

Pete Wilson -- the last Republican elected Senator from or Governor of California, was last elected Governor 19 years ago. The political landscape has changed a bit since then.

> a Senator can win too.

Pete Wilson did it the last time 25 years ago. Sure, the Republicans could run a candidate that could win, but they haven't shown much propensity to do so.

> Feinstein has been like this forever, but she's in a seat where the electorate would rather vote for a Democrat that eats babies over a moderate Republican.

Like all Senators, she's elected by the State as a whole; there hasn't been anything like a "moderate Republican" run against Feinstein since she was elected.

Actually Mike Huffington ran against her in 1994 and came within 1% of replacing her with a moderate Republican. I'm glad I voted for him even though I'm a Democrat.

I just moved to CA for the last election, and I voted for her. This was after already sending her mail saying she was doing a bad job. But as much as I didn't want to vote for her, the opponent did not look like a "moderate Republican." Stood for a ton of things I disagreed with. Maybe it's just party lines, but then they should have strayed from those lines if they wanted broader support to capitalize on anti-Feinstein.

There are other Democrats out there. She has seniority in the Senate though, which is unfortunately valuable to far too many Californians.

Honestly, I doubt that most of the voters even know what her seniority gets them.

Recalling her is the only option if she doesn't resign from the position of Chief of Senate Intelligence. She's way too dangerous in that position to be left there. No real reform of the NSA will happen with her there. I still remember how disgusted I was with her when she kept asking everyone to just end it with the debate already and just extend FISA Amendments Act until 2017, last year.

She can not be recalled.

The removal of U.S. Representatives or U.S. Senators is governed by the United States Constitution, Article 1, Sec. 5 (2), which states "Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings, punish its members for disorderly behavior, and, with the concurrence of two-thirds, expel a member." The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States are removed through the process of "impeachment" which is governed by the United States Constitution.

http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/recalls/recall.pdf

A recall will never happen. California is too big of a state, which would make a recall effort too expensive to achieve even a respectable failure, and most people don't care two shits about the NSA. If people are unhappy in California it's the governor who gets recalled, not a senator.

> A recall will never happen.

True.

> California is too big of a state

If the size of California were an issue, it would prevent recalls of the governor, as well; the reason it will never happen has nothing to do with that, it has to do with the fact that US Senators can't be recalled.

> Recalling her is the only option

To recall a US Senator, first you have to pass an amendment to the US Constitution to make that possible.

So, its not really an option.

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