She seems to be in clear mental decline now, so much so that she stepped down (some say was removed) from the senate Judiciary committee [1].
So what allowed her to get renominated? Simple she was good at the most important thing for a large blue state Democratic Senator: fundraising. For whatever reason, she was a massive rainmaker. You have to be to be nominated as a Demorat for Senate in California. kamala Harris was too. It's pretty much how she rose to being VP now.
It's also why Chuck Schumer is the Senate Majority Leader and also why you will never see any serious Wall Street reform under the current system. It is the core of Schumer's fundraising base.
So there's a fine line between fundraising and corruption (legally speaking). Unfortuantely this Supreme Court has decided that money is speech [2], which has made all this even more important.
As polarized as things may seem, all that is on social issues. Both parties have class solidarity with the capital-owning class that has bought both sides.
So we can look at Feinstein's "corruption" in isolation but that's really missing the forest for the trees.
[1]: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/23/dianne-feinstein-st...
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC#:~:text....
If you think 91 is a ridiculous age for a senator, you might want to recalibrate your feigned outrage a notch or two. The racist bigot from the great state of South Carolina, Strom Thurmond, has her beat by at least a decade (b 1902 d 2003). Feinstein is a spring chicken next to Thurmond (may he rot in pieces).
Assuming you mean Citizens United, decided twelve years ago, the Court has had a nearly 50% turnover since then. It was still “the Robert’s Court” but hardly “this Court”. But the current Court would likely hold a majority for same conclusion of CU - that the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, which prohibited any corporation, non-profit organization or labor union from making an "electioneering communication" within 30 days of a primary or 60 days of an election was an unconstitutional limit on free speech.
Not to relitigate it, but it’s not as if collectives of people weren’t making campaign communications prior to BCRA or CU. They traditionally did. If one has an issue with corporate personhood, one has to rewind 100 years and do impact analysis on all that it would mean in practice. Probably a bloodier mess than just prohibiting speech (property rights, taxation, etc).
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/23/trump-mental-fitnes...
She's been in a position of power within the CA portion of the party for so long she'd be a rainmaker even if she was a complete dolt (which she is, IMO).
I don't think it's better now. Just different.
To suggest that the rules (or lack thereof) completely changed with that ruling is to misunderstand the history of campaign-finance law over the past ~50 years.
Any "green deal" can only happen if a sufficient majority is on board, and Feinstein is not the blocker here, and neither is California the king of the nation. If those children want to engage in the politics of energy and ecology in an effective way, then they need to find a platform which addresses the entire nation, especially those demographics which are yet to be convinced of any green deal whatsoever.
I think even many democrats know she is garbage. She regularly votes against the little guy and for the big business interest. She's a relic of the worst age of the democratic party, and her continued safe seat is basically one of the reasons America can't have nice things and has so many struggles.
I was not in support of her until I saw this video. She calmly handled a crowd of kids yelling what the one adult was telling them to repeat, and now I think she's an excellent leader.
I donate to climate action regularly btw, the issue is more nuanced than whatever these bozos wanted from her.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-09-21-mn-37499-...
It's an empty promise anyway, there's a commission that was created for the sole purpose of preventing politicians from doing precisely what Feinstein was promising and attempting to do, continuing to fund a military base that no longer makes sense from a national level in order to provide funds for their district.
