Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who has been in the House since January 2019, is calling on Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), who has been in the Senate for 31 years, to resign.
Now, we don’t exactly disagree with her. Feinstein has been in public service (read: sucking off the government teat) since 1978 — 45 years. And at 89, her health has severely compromised her ability to do her job (she’s been out with shingles since early March, missing every vote since then — don’t worry, you’re still paying her $174,000 salary to do nothing).
So AOC took to some newfangled social media site called BlueSky to give her elder and her lofty superior an ultimatum: resign.
“[Dianne Feinstein] should retire. I think criticisms of that stance as ‘anti-feminist’ are a farce,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote.
“Her refusal to either retire or show up is causing great harm to the judiciary – precisely where repro rights are getting stripped. That failure means now in this precious window Dems can only pass GOP-approved nominees,” Ocasio-Cortez added.
She’s correct there, too. With Feinstein, who serves on the Judiciary Committee, out for a lengthy time, the panel is evenly split between Democrats and Republicans. That does mean the GOP has a kind of control — they can kill nominations they don’t like.
Democratic Senate Leader Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) tried to get the Senate to allow another Democratic senator to temporarily serve on the Judiciary Committee. That effort failed.
But here’s the thing: AOC is 33 and has been a lawmaker for a little over three years. Feinstein has devoted her life to public service (like her politics or not, she has). It’s a little arrogant for a junior House member to demand a senior Senate leader resign.
Still, she’s right. And she’s right again when she says the whole “anti-feminist” argument is garbage.
When calls for Feinstein to resign began getting louder, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) jumped into the fray to say that is sexist.
Calling Feinstein a “champion for California,” Pelosi said Feinstein “deserves the respect to get well and be back on duty.”
“It’s interesting to me,” Pelosi added. “I don’t know what political agendas are at work that are going after Senator Feinstein in that way. I’ve never seen them go after a man who was sick in the Senate that way.”
Of course, calls for Feinstein to step down have nothing to do with sexism. Instead, it has to do with competency. Feinstein simply cannot do the job anymore — and in reality, she should have retired years ago.
But that’s none of AOC’s business. In the end, the people who should most want Feinstein to resign are the residents of California. She’s a big girl and can decide what to do. She doesn’t need the advice of a 33-year-old bartender, thank you very much.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
Joseph Curl has covered politics for 35 years, including 12 years as White House correspondent for a national newspaper. He was also the a.m. editor of the Drudge Report for four years. Send tips to [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @josephcurl.