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With Feinstein’s death, what happens with her seat on Judiciary committee, other panels?

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Sen. Dianne Feinstein was the most senior Democrat on two of the Senate’s most powerful committees, and her death could set off a cascade of changes that affect California’s power in Washington.

Soon after news broke Friday that Feinstein, 90, had died overnight, Republican leaders indicated that they would not attempt to block Democrats from filling her committee assignments, including on the powerful Judiciary and Appropriations committees.

Following through would be a departure from their refusal in the spring to appoint a temporary replacement to the Judiciary committee while Feinstein was out for months to recover from a shingles infection . Feinstein’s absence meant Democrats didn’t have enough votes to get judicial nominees out of committee without Republican support.

The Los Angeles Times’ Benjamin Oreskes breaks down how Gov. Gavin Newsom may decide on who will fill the late senators vacant seat and the legacy she leaves behind.

Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-S.D. ) told Politico that he expects the Senate to follow precedent and allow committee vacancies to be filled without a fight. Republicans previously said in the spring that there was no precedent for temporarily replacing a sitting senator on a committee. Senior GOP Sen. John Cornyn of Texas said that Republicans weren’t going to “help what we consider to be controversial or unqualified nominees to get confirmed.”

Feinstein also served on the Senate Intelligence and Rules committees. Normally senators are assigned to committees by unanimous consent, but that motion can be filibustered. If a senator objects, Democrats would need 60 votes to appoint someone to fill Feinstein’s committee assignments. With an evenly divided Senate, they would need help from 10 senators to fill out the committees.

But even without delays from Republicans, Feinstein’s successor isn’t guaranteed her seats on the powerful Judiciary and Appropriations committees. And Senate Democrats may not want to wait long to fill them, either.

“It’s a complicated weekend for [Senate Majority Leader] Chuck Schumer, not only to keep government open but to figure out how he maps out this replacement so that it advantages the Democratic Party,” said associate professor of public policy at Brown University Wendy Schiller, an expert on the Senate.

Until another senator is named to the Judiciary committee, the panel is evenly split with 10 Republicans and 10 Democrats.

California was in the unusual position of having two senators on the Judiciary committee. Sen. Alex Padilla, also a Democrat, is not expected to give up his seat, so it is unlikely that Feinstein’s successor will end up there as well, particularly if other, more senior senators are interested in the spot.

“There’s always a little musical chairs when there’s a vacancy,” said Washington University political science professor Steven Smith. “Feinstein has been in place for a long time.”

Smith said a lot could hinge on how quickly California Gov. Gavin Newsom moves to fill Feinstein’s seat . If he waits several weeks as he did with Padilla’s appointment after then-Sen. Kamala Harris was tapped as Joe Biden’s vice president, Schumer could name a Judiciary committee replacement quickly in an effort to keep Biden’s judicial nominees moving.

Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.) was put forward as a temporary replacement for Feinstein on the committee last spring. He has since announced plans to retire at the end of this Congress and has been named Senate Foreign Relations chair.

Moving a senator to a new committee will be just the start of the shuffle, Schiller said.

“Smart senators who shape successful careers think very seriously about their committee assignments. It is the bulk of how they form their reputation, particularly in their first six years,” she said. “It is a complex chess game.”

As for Feinstein’s position on the Senate Appropriations committee, such a seat rarely would go to a freshman senator, particularly one not planning to run for a full term, as would likely be the case with whomever Newsom appoints as Feinstein’s successor. It might be a logical move for Padilla, though, Schiller said, who ran for and won a full term after initially being appointed to his Senate seat.

Home to more than 10% of the U.S. population, California usually sees one of its senators receive a seat on the Appropriations committee, which decides how the government appropriates money, or on the Armed Services committee. Padilla could opt to let go of his seat on the Environment and Public Works committee in exchange for more power on Appropriations, Schiller said.

A spokesperson for Padilla told The Times that any committee changes aren’t under discussion so soon after Feinstein’s death.

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Sarah D. Wire covers government accountability, the Justice Department and national security for the Los Angeles Times with a focus on the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and domestic extremism. She previously covered Congress for The Times. She contributed to the team that won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news coverage of the San Bernardino shooting and received the Sigma Delta Chi Award for Washington Correspondence in 2020.

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Republicans block effort to replace Feinstein on Judiciary panel

Deirdre Walsh

Barbara Sprunt

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., pushed back at Democrats' effort to temporarily swap in another Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee as Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., recovers from shingles. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images hide caption

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., pushed back at Democrats' effort to temporarily swap in another Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee as Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., recovers from shingles.

Senate Republicans blocked an effort by Democrats to replace ailing California Sen. Dianne Feinstein on the Senate Judiciary Committee temporarily as she recovers from shingles at home.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., asked to move a resolution replacing her, at her request, until she can return, with Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md. The top Republican on the Judiciary panel, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R- S.C., objected and blocked the measure.

Graham said he hoped Feinstein would be back soon, but that adding a Democrat to her place while she is away would allow support for "a handful of judges that I think should never be on the bench."

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell earlier on Tuesday signaled that Republicans opposed the effort by Democrats to replace Feinstein on the committee. He said the bulk of President Biden's judicial nominees have bipartisan support and replacing Feinstein would allow Democrats to approve nominees he labeled "unqualified."

"So let's be clear: Senate Republicans will not take part in sidelining a temporary absent colleague off a committee just so Democrats can force through their very worst nominees," McConnell said Tuesday.

Feinstein, 89, has not voted since February, and says she needs more time to recuperate after a diagnosis of shingles. Democrats have raised concerns that without her vote, Biden's nominees are stalled in committee. California Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna called on Feinstein to resign last week, telling NPR she was an "absentee" senator. Another House Democrat, Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips, agreed.

In response, Feinstein released a statement saying her recovery was taking longer than she anticipated, and she requested that Schumer replace her on the Judiciary panel until she can return for votes in Washington.

McConnell called the request by Schumer to replace Feinstein on one committee "extremely unusual" and called Feinstein "a dear friend," a "Titanic figure" and a "stateswoman."

McConnell specified that there were "a small fraction" of nominees that cannot get any Republican votes in the committee. "The far left wants the full Senate to move a senator off a full committee so they can ram through a small sliver of nominees who are especially extreme or especially unqualified."

Any move to change committee assignments would need 60 votes to pass and Democrats are operating with a slim 51-49 majority.

Senate Democrats have broadly supported Feinstein's request to give her more time to recover. But without GOP support to replace her, there will likely be new pressure on Feinstein.

Schumer sidestepped a question Tuesday on whether Feinstein should step down, telling reporters, "I spoke to Senator Feinstein just a few days ago and she and I are very hopeful that she will return very soon."

Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, a member of the GOP leadership team, told reporters Monday, "I would not support [a replacement] at all. We're not going to help the Democrats with that."

Another Republican, Maine Sen. Susan Collins, criticized Democrats, saying Feinstein has "been an extraordinary senator and she's a good friend of mine. During the past two years, there's been a concerted campaign to force her off of the Judiciary committee and I will have no part of that."

Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, a member of the Judiciary panel, said Monday, "I hope she comes back soon. I respect her a lot. Her voters voted her in for six years and I do think this is a decision that Dianne and her constituents should make."

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., a member of the Judiciary committee, told NPR that the committee should press ahead with nominations and "we will use all of the rules and tools available." He declined to give details but said Democrats have options. He also said Feinstein could be back "in a couple of weeks."

Michigan Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow told reporters, "I think that she's anxious to come back and so we'll have to see. I think that she has been such — over the years — such a force, such a role model for me and that I just want her to be treated with respect, like everybody else. She'll make the right decision."

It's unclear what next steps Democrats will take. GOP lawmakers have also recently had absences due to medical issues. Maine independent Sen. Angus King told NPR he could see how "the situation may be reversed at some point in the reasonably foreseeable future."

McConnell recently missed several weeks in the Senate after falling and suffering a concussion and minor rib fracture in early March.

A standstill settles in as Democrats fret over Feinstein’s health

The california senator is casting votes and attending committee hearings but has at times seemed confused by reporters’ questions.

When Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) returned to the Capitol this month, a beaming Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer was waiting for her as the gray sedan zoomed up, while a crowd of reporters and photographers looked on.

Feinstein, 89, looked frail, and part of her face appeared to droop, which her office would disclose more than a week later was caused by a separate condition triggered by the shingles that had sidelined her since February. Aides helped her into a wheelchair and then quickly pushed her inside to the Senate floor, where Feinstein quietly said “aye” and cast her vote — the moment her colleagues had been waiting months for.

Feinstein’s allies say that she has been doing her job since returning more than a week ago — casting votes that are needed to boost Democrats’ narrow majority in the Senate and approving President Biden’s judicial picks. But the shock of seeing Feinstein’s visibly weakened state — paired with her apparent confusion in some interactions with reporters — has created rising alarm that is rippling across both Washington and California about her fitness to serve. At the same time, there is no consensus about what should be done — and virtually no visibility into her thinking about how she will manage her duties over the next year and a half as she continues to rely on an insular circle of aides, revealing very little to the public.

The standstill around the issue has been intensified by the competing interests of the three Democratic members of the House from California who are vying to replace Feinstein in the 2024 election : Adam B. Schiff, Katie Porter and Barbara Lee. All of them are allied with powerful leaders in the party who would have the ear of California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) were he forced to appoint a replacement for Feinstein if she stepped down before the end of her term.

There were fresh questions this past week about whether Feinstein had been transparent with her constituents when it was disclosed that her case of shingles had triggered encephalitis, an inflammation of the brain, as well as Ramsay Hunt syndrome, which causes facial paralysis. (A spokesperson said the encephalitis had resolved but “she continues to have complications from Ramsay Hunt syndrome.”) Before those complications were confirmed by her spokesman — only after they were reported in the New York Times — her office had not detailed any information about her medical condition beyond the shingles diagnosis and had declined requests to provide information from her doctors.

Amar Shergill, chair of the Progressive Caucus of the California Democratic Party, said there is concern that the public has not gotten the full picture about the medical complications Feinstein was experiencing before she returned to Washington and alarm that she has struggled “during simple conversations with reporters about when she was working and when she wasn’t.”

“Democrats are now wondering whether she’s actually capable of representing her constituents in D.C.,” said Shergill, who has endorsed Lee in the race to replace Feinstein. “This is a very important time with the impending default and the budget, and we need a senator who is involved in those discussions, and advocating in the press and taking meetings. It seems very clear that she’s not going to be able to do any of that.”

But there is also no evidence of a groundswell of California groups or activists demanding that Feinstein step aside — beyond the coalition of 60 liberal grass-roots groups that urged her to resign last month. It is widely known in California Democratic circles that the senator built a career premised on her refusal to bow to pressure, with former aides and colleagues noting that the harder Feinstein is pushed, the more determined she becomes to keep her own counsel.

“The pressure isn’t the thing that’s going to get her to act. It’s going to have to be a realization that she and her senior people will have to make about how sustainable this is given her abilities or lack thereof,” said California Democratic consultant Roger Salazar. “I just don’t see her leaving under anything but her own terms.”

Susie Tompkins Buell, a top Democratic donor in California who admires Feinstein, said she believes many people aren’t speaking up about their concerns about her health because she seems so vulnerable and they want to be respectful. This past week, Buell told the Times she thinks Schumer or Newsom have a responsibility to do something.

“I think everyone is torn between their compassion and scratching their head about practically, what they can do about this,” Buell told The Washington Post.

A Feinstein spokesperson declined to comment for this article but pointed to a previous statement in which the senator said: “I’m back in Washington, voting and attending committee meetings while I recover from complications related to a shingles diagnosis. I continue to work and get results for California.”

There is no indication that either Schumer or Newsom think it is their role to urge Feinstein to step aside, particularly in the midst of the contentious three-way Democratic race to replace her.

Upon Feinstein’s return to the narrowly divided Senate, Schumer, who spoke to her on the phone several times during her absence, said she is “exactly where she wants to be.” Her presence solves difficult math problems for him and the White House when Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and other vulnerable Democrats up for reelection decide not to back Biden nominees.

Newsom, who has known Feinstein since his earliest days in politics, would have the responsibility of appointing Feinstein’s successor if she were to leave office early — which could become one of the most consequential and politically fraught decisions he has had to make.

The Democratic governor, widely viewed as a future White House contender, was under intense pressure to appoint a Black woman to the Senate when Kamala D. Harris vacated her seat to become Biden’s running mate, because her departure meant that there were no Black women serving in the chamber.

Instead, he chose then-Secretary of State Alex Padilla, who became the first Latino senator from California. Newsom subsequently promised during an MSNBC interview that he would choose a Black woman if he were given another chance to make a Senate appointment.

When Newsom made that promise in 2021, two natural choices were near the top of his list: then-Rep. Karen Bass, who is now mayor of Los Angeles, and Lee, who was not yet a candidate for Senate.

“At that time it was just a throwaway line on cable TV to satisfy a disgruntled constituency,” said Dan Schnur, who teaches politics and communications at the University of California at Berkeley and at the University of Southern California and Pepperdine University. “Now he’s trapped by it. If he does not appoint Lee, if he does not appoint a Black woman — he angers the African American community. If he does appoint Barbara Lee, he enrages a lot of very powerful supporters of the other candidates.”

While some have suggested that Newsom could choose a Black woman to fill a “caretaker” role through the end of Feinstein’s term — to avoid putting his thumb on the scale for any of the three Democrats running for the seat — several of the prominent Black female politicians who would naturally be candidates for that role have said they are not interested. And Newsom could face a backlash for overlooking Lee given that she is the longest-tenured of three candidates, the highest-ranking Black woman appointed to Democratic leadership in the House and a past chair of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Aimee Allison, who founded She the People, a national network aimed at elevating the political power of women of color, noted that she was involved with the statewide network of women calling for Newsom to appoint a Black woman in 2021.

Allison, who is backing Lee in the Senate race, said that although Newsom appointed Padilla, “he responded to that call publicly by making that commitment and promise, and we took him at his word.”

“Many of us, including myself, find the conversation about caretaking unacceptable,” Allison added. “There was never a conversation about a caretaking role when it came to Senator Padilla. Why is there an exception for a Black woman?”

Back in Washington, Feinstein’s return to the Senate has been unsteady. She has attended multiple Judiciary Committee hearings, and on Thursday, she briefly praised law enforcement as the committee passed legislation in honor of National Police Week.

“There was no program more favorable with people than police on the streets,” she said of her tenure as mayor of San Francisco. “They got to know them, there was a positive relationship, the crime rate went down and I came away from the job really understanding the necessary for the juncture.”

The senior California senator has also taken a handful of questions from reporters as she’s been guided to votes, occasionally sounding confused. “No, I haven’t been gone,” she told a reporter from the Los Angeles Times who asked about her colleagues’ reaction to having her back in the Senate, appearing irritated. “No, I’ve been here. I’ve been voting.”

On another day, she incorrectly denied that she had suffered encephalitis during her bout of shingles, telling a CNN reporter that she had just had a “bad flu.” (Her office later clarified that Feinstein “misspoke” because her doctor had not used the medical terminology with her when describing her complications.)

Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), the chair of the Judiciary Committee, told reporters this past week that he could not be the judge of whether she was fit to serve and that his staff were “monitoring” her health condition on a daily basis to ensure that she could be present for votes.

“She has to make that decision for herself and her family as to going forward, but we’re happy to have her back,” he said.

Critics have argued that her family and friends should persuade her to resign. And former senator Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), who said she considers Feinstein a friend, took to Twitter to say Feinstein’s “legacy is being tarnished” by her return to the Senate with such serious health issues. But Feinstein’s allies say that the senator herself pushed to return and that calls for her resignation have not deterred her.

Former California governor Jerry Brown defended Feinstein in an interview with CNN on Friday, arguing that she was forced to return to the Senate because it’s unclear whether Republicans would allow a new senator to be seated on the Judiciary Committee even if she resigned. Republicans blocked Schumer’s request to temporarily replace her in April.

“There’s a real challenge here that [is] exacerbated by the Republican policies,” Brown said. “Feinstein has what it takes to participate over the next several months.”

It’s unclear how real that threat is, however. Committee assignments are almost universally uncontroversial measures that happen at the start of a Congress, when senators unanimously approve both Republican and Democratic assignments by a voice vote. But if someone does object to a senator’s committee assignment, that placement then needs 60 votes to be approved.

Republicans argued that the earlier request was unprecedented, given that no senator appears to have been “temporarily” replaced on a committee in recent memory, and that it was even more unusual because Feinstein wanted to keep her other committee assignments. Some Republicans, including Sens. John Thune (R-S.D.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), said at the time that if Feinstein were replaced by a new senator, that would be a different situation and suggested it would not draw the same opposition. Democrats would likely need nine Republicans to agree to seating the new member.

“There’s a huge difference between temporarily replacing a member on one of her committees for the sole purpose of advancing partisan judicial nominees and refusing to permanently sit an entirely new member on all committees,” said one Republican Senate aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose internal conversations.

And despite the heightened scrutiny of her performance, Feinstein has faced no public pressure from Senate colleagues to resign.

“We’re all human and we all have health issues, and right now she is performing as a United States senator doing her job,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) told reporters this past week.

Marianne LeVine contributed to this report .

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Dianne Feinstein’s Death Instantly Creates Two Big Problems to Solve

California Sen. Dianne Feinstein has died at age 90, her office announced on Friday. A political legend whose health had deteriorated sharply of late, Feinstein had voted on the Senate floor as recently as late Thursday morning.

While there will be a lengthy period of well-deserved tributes to her in the coming days and weeks, her passing raises a couple of imminent questions for California politics, and the Senate, going forward.

The first question is who California Gov. Gavin Newsom will appoint to replace Feinstein in the Senate. In 2021, after Newsom appointed now–Sen. Alex Padilla to replace newly minted Vice President Kamala Harris, he pledged to appoint a Black woman to serve the remainder of Feinstein’s term should she leave the body. The most obvious choice would have been California Rep. Barbara Lee, a veteran Bay Area congresswoman and an icon on the left. Lee, however, announced a candidacy for a full term to Feinstein’s Senate seat in the 2024 election, so selecting Lee now would be seen as giving her a leg up in that race against her fellow Democratic representatives, Adam Schiff and Katie Porter. In an interview in early September, Newsom said he wouldn’t do that.

“It would be completely unfair to the Democrats that have worked their tail off,” Newsom said on Meet the Press . “That primary is just a matter of months away. I don’t want to tip the balance of that.” He maintained his pledge to select a Black woman, however, in the event of a vacancy.

The second question is what will happen with Feinstein’s crucial tie-breaking seat on the Judiciary Committee.

A number of prominent Democrats, including those on the Judiciary Committee, had argued this year against Feinstein resigning on the grounds that Republicans would filibuster her replacement on the committee, deadlocking its membership and limiting Democrats’ efforts to process judicial nominations. Republicans had already blocked a Democratic request earlier in the year, while Feinstein was on a lengthy hiatus from the Senate, to temporarily swap in another Democratic senator to her Judiciary seat. So Feinstein returned to Washington from her bout with shingles, sooner than may have been medically advisable, to serve as that tie-breaking vote in committee on Biden’s more partisan nominations.

But to filibuster Feinstein’s replacement on the Judiciary Committee would be a horse of a different color than filibustering a temporary swap, and Senate Republican leaders were already throwing cold water on the idea by mid-Friday. Regardless of what one may think of Senate Republicans’ history of hardball tactics when it comes to judicial nominations, blocking a majority party from having a committee majority, just for kicks, would set an extraordinary new precedent that wouldn’t end well for anyone.

Committee rosters are set by Senate resolution. Typically, they’re approved by unanimous consent at the beginning of a new Congress or whenever a vacancy arises. If a Republican (or Republicans) chose to block that move, and Senate Democrats could not muster 60 votes to overcome it, the Senate itself would become a whole new ballgame.

If the minority party does not let the majority party assume a majority on a committee, that would be the sort of blow to representative democracy for which the appropriate response is to nuke the filibuster for committee assignments. Should Democrats not muster the votes to eliminate the filibuster for committee assignments, then the appropriate response would be to filibuster Republicans from assuming a majority on any committee the next time they take the Senate majority.

It was not a path that any Senate Republicans indicated they’d go down in the event of Feinstein’s resignation or passing when asked about it earlier in the year.

“Because they have a majority, they’re entitled to a one-seat vote majority on that committee,” no less than Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley told Insider in July, while Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley said, “we wouldn’t do that.” South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, told CNN in April that if Feinstein “does resign, I would be in the camp of following the precedent of the Senate, replacing the person, consistent with what we have done in the past.”

Now, we know that Senate Republicans have a reputation for flexibility in their commitments when it comes to the federal bench. Many of these senators, most notably Graham himself, underwent a sharp conversion between 2016 and 2020 on the propriety of confirming Supreme Court nominees just before presidential elections. The risks associated with those decisions—first to deny Merrick Garland a confirmation process following Justice Antonin Scalia’s death in 2016, and then to rush Amy Coney Barrett to the bench following Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death in 2020—were entirely political.

A new precedent in which the majority can’t redistribute a deceased senator’s committee assignments, and thus can’t achieve a majority on committees, would risk more than just political backlash. Republicans have an excellent chance of retaking the Senate majority in the 2024 election. If they do, they would probably like the ability to seat majorities on their committees in January 2025. And by the way: Senate Republicans aren’t all sprightly, youthful, and vigorous themselves. Should a member of their conference exit the mortal realm, they wouldn’t want those committee seats interred with the deceased, either.

Republicans could face some pressure from the right to pick this fight. But it wouldn’t be a garden-variety scrap to follow through on.

Laphonza Butler is sworn in, filling Dianne Feinstein's Senate seat

WASHINGTON — Laphonza Butler was sworn in Tuesday to fill the seat of the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who died last week at age 90 .

Vice President Kamala Harris, who has been a longtime ally of and adviser to Butler, administered the oath of office, prompting boisterous applause from the Senate floor and gallery.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom moved quickly to select Butler , who was the president of EMILY’s List, on Sunday. She is the third Black woman to serve as a senator, following Harris until she became vice president and Carol Moseley Braun, D-Ill., in the 1990s.

Butler, the first openly LGBTQ person to represent California in the chamber, will serve alongside fellow California Democrat Alex Padilla.

After her swearing-in ceremony, President Joe Biden called Butler to congratulate her, the White House said.

Butler had led EMILY’s List, a group focused on electing Democratic women who support abortion rights, since 2021, when she became the first Black woman to lead the organization.

"I am honored to accept Gov. Newsom’s nomination to be a U.S. Senator for a state I have long called home,” Butler said in a statement Monday. “I am humbled by the Governor’s trust. Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s leadership and legacy are immeasurable. I will do my best to honor her by devoting my time and energy to serving the people of California and the people of this great nation."

Butler resides in Maryland, but a spokesman, Matthew Wing, told NBC News on Monday that she had re-registered to vote in California.

With her swearing-in, the Democrats again have a 51-49 majority; it puts them in a position to fill Feinstein’s seat on the Judiciary Committee, which is deadlocked.

Feinstein had said she would not run for re-election in 2024. Major contenders in the Senate race are Democratic Reps. Adam Schiff, Katie Porter and Barbara Lee.

Before Feinstein’s death, Newsom had said he planned to make an “ interim ” appointment if he needed to fill her seat, because he did not want to tip the scales toward any of the current candidates.

He made it clear, however, that no restrictions were put on Butler’s appointment and that she was free to run if she wanted. Butler will serve out the rest of Feinstein's term, which ends in early 2025. She has not yet indicated whether she plans to run for the seat.

Rebecca Shabad is a politics reporter for NBC News based in Washington.

Liz Brown-Kaiser covers Capitol Hill for NBC News.

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Replacing Feinstein can be complicated, Senate history shows

There is precedent for blocking a senator from being allowed to resign. Riddick’s Senate Procedure cites a 1946 case in which a request from Sen. Wayne Morse, D-Ore., to resign from a committee that was “left in abeyance” after the request to resign by unanimous consent faced an objection.

There are also earlier cases when such requests were declined by the Senate, including in March of 1891. Sen. John Tyler Morgan, an Alabama Democrat who had been a Confederate general and Ku Klux Klan leader, sought to resign from the Foreign Relations Committee.

After a brief debate, Sen. John C. Spooner, R-Wis., said, “I believe it is the unanimous judgment of the Senate without regard to party that the withdrawal of that Senator from service upon that committee would be a serious public loss. His service there has been broadminded, fearless, able, lofty, and patriotic.”

The Senate, in 1891, decided by voice vote to decline Morgan’s effort to leave the committee.

Even a Feinstein resignation from the Senate itself would not necessarily resolve the committee assignment issue, since the measure to seat a successor appointed by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom would also be debatable.

Aidan Quigley contributed to this report.

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Senate Committee Assignments

Senator Dianne Feinstein (D)

Select Committee on Intelligence Committee on Appropriations Committee on the Judiciary Committee on Rules & Administration

Visit Senator Feinstein's Web site »

Alex Padilla (D)

Committee on the Budget Committee on Environment and Public Works Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee on the Judiciary Committee on Rules & Administration Joint Committee on Printing

Visit ​Senator Padilla's Web site »

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