Congressional Spending Battles Pressure Gavin Newsom to Appoint Dianne Feinstein’s Successor

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) faces pressure to quickly appoint a successor to late Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) as a government shutdown looms and major spending battles play out on Capitol Hill. 

Democrats already held a slim 51-49 seat majority in the Senate when counting independents who caucus with them. In light of Feinstein’s death, Senate Democrats’ majority is weakened to just one seat, therefore harming their leverage in all matters until a replacement is sworn in. 

A high-stakes government funding battle is taking place on Capitol Hill, where a shutdown on Saturday is becoming increasingly likely. The House of Representatives has passed four of the twelve appropriations bills through regular order, which Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) noted on Friday accounts for “more than 70 percent of the discretionary spending on appropriations.” 

“How much has the Senate passed? Zero. Not one appropriations bill has passed the Senate,” he said. McCarthy said he would put forth a continuing resolution “to fund the government and secure the border.” 

“We hope Democrats will join with us. I hope Democrats don’t vote to shut the government down,” he said. 

Meanwhile, the Senate is working on a stop-gap bill, which includes $12 billion in Ukraine funding, to keep the government funded until November 17, as UPI noted. 

While it is uncertain how negotiations will play out within the House, the Senate, and then between them and the White House, Politico noted Senate Democrats could need every vote — which pressures Newsom to act rapidly.

The prospect of replacing Feinstein is something Newsom hoped to avoid as questions swirled around the nonagenarian’s cognitive capacities and health over the past year, as Politico noted. Feinstein had intended to finish her term but not run for reelection. 

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Senate Appropriation Committee

In 2021, Newsom told Joy Reid on MSNBC’s The Reid Out he would appoint a black woman to the Senate if Feinstein retired. 

“We have multiple names in mind; the answer is yes,” he said.

Further complicating the dynamic is the high-stakes Democrat primary playing out in California, where Reps. Katie Porter (D-CA), Adam Schiff (D-CA), and Barbara Lee (D-CA) — a black woman — are vying to graduate to the upper chamber.

However, Newsom has said he would not appoint one of the candidates to Feinstein’s seat to serve in the interim. 

“I don’t want to get involved in the primary,” Newsom told Meet the Press in September, as NBC News noted. “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.”

Lee scolded Newsom in response. 

“I am troubled by the governor’s remarks,” she said. “The idea that a Black woman should be appointed only as a caretaker to simply check a box is insulting to countless Black women across this country who have carried the Democratic Party to victory election after election.”

The governor honored Feinstein and her legacy Friday morning in a statement. 

“Dianne Feinstein was many things – a powerful, trailblazing US Senator; an early voice for gun control; a leader in times of tragedy and chaos,” he said in part, per Politico.