LA Times - Post-Elect Power Surge Expected for Sen. Feinstein

LA Times - Post-Elect Power Surge Expected for Sen. Feinstein

No matter which party controls the U.S. Senate after Nov. 7, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein is expected to come out a winner.

Not just because the Democrat is likely to win reelection, but because the Senate's margin of control is anticipated to be very thin — one or two votes. And that would magnify the power of senators such as Feinstein who are known for crossing party lines when it gets them what they want.

"In the new Senate, people like Dianne Feinstein are going to be extraordinarily powerful," said Democratic strategist Anita Dunn. "The people who are respected and can work on either side of the aisle will hold the balance of power."

Feinstein's penchant for working with Republicans has not always endeared her to liberal activists, who privately complain that she is unreliable on their issues.

"She has carved out a niche as a moderate to conservative Democrat that has worked for her," said Bruce Cain, director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley. In Washington, he said, "it doesn't always get her loved, but it gets her respect."

In California, Feinstein's trademark mix — liberal on environmental and social issues and conservative on fiscal and law-and-order issues — has made her arguably the state's most consistently popular politician.

"Her approval ratings have been so stable over time. She has consistently favorable reviews from not only her own party" but from one-third of Republicans, and independents by a 2-1 margin, said Mark Baldassare, director of research at the Public Policy Institute of California in San Francisco. "Her policy positions are a perfect match for where Californians stand on the issues."

For her part, Feinstein makes no apology for her efforts to work with Republicans — even with a Congress and White House increasingly known for partisanship.

"I absolutely do believe that the center is the place on the political spectrum where you can get the momentum to find solutions," Feinstein said in an interview.

Now 73, the former San Francisco mayor has been a senator for 14 years. If she is reelected next month, she will be on her way to serving 20 years in Washington — twice as long as she served as mayor — and would be 79 when her fourth term is completed.

That would not make her the longest-serving female senator; that distinction belongs to Margaret Chase Smith, who represented Maine for 24 years. Nor would she technically be the oldest; Rebecca Fenton was sworn in as a senator in 1922 at 88, although she served only one day.

But Feinstein hints that she is willing to consider running for a fifth term and becoming the first full-term female octogenarian in the Senate.

"I make no predictions on the future at this point," she said. "If my health holds up, as it has, I don't put a time limit" on public service.

A nominal opponent

Her stature and fundraising power led the Republican Party essentially to concede this year's race by putting up a nominal opponent, former state Sen. Richard Mountjoy, best known as coauthor of the 1994 anti-illegal-immigration ballot initiative Proposition 187.

Mountjoy is running a pro-Christian values, anti-illegal-immigration campaign. He has had difficulty in fundraising, however; as of June, the last time his campaign filed disclosure forms, he had just over $20,000 in the bank. By comparison, Feinstein's last disclosure forms showed she had more than $7 million at the end of September.

"I believe we have enough to get our message out there," Mountjoy said in an interview. "We never tried to match all the money she gets from special interests. But we're doing well with what we've got."

Mountjoy said Feinstein is more liberal than many voters realize. "She's really on the left," he says, mentioning abortion and same-sex marriage as examples. "She's on the opposite side of everything California believes in."

According to the nonpartisan National Journal's analysis of Senate votes, Feinstein gets a 77% liberal score, compared with 94% for California's other U.S. senator, Barbara Boxer. Twenty-seven Democrats are rated more liberal on the journal's scale than Feinstein; 15 rank lower.

"I make up my own mind. I want to be independent," Feinstein said. "I don't agree with everyone on my own side all the time, and I don't think it's healthy to always follow the dictates on a particular policy."

The polls suggest that voters approve. A Field poll of likely voters from Oct. 3 shows Feinstein leading Mountjoy 57% to 29%.

For many Californians, the defining moment of Feinstein's public service remains the day in 1978 that she became mayor of San Francisco after the assassination of Mayor George Moscone. As president of the Board of Supervisors, Feinstein automatically became acting mayor and served out the remainder of Moscone's term, earning praise for her leadership during a turbulent time in the city's history and eventually being elected in her own right.

Barred by law from serving more than two terms as mayor, Feinstein ran unsuccessfully for governor in 1990 against Pete Wilson. In 1992, Feinstein was part of a wave of women elected to the Senate in reaction to charges of sexual harassment aired during the battle over Clarence Thomas' nomination to the Supreme Court. That election allowed Feinstein to serve out the remainder of Wilson's Senate term; she won full terms in 1994 and 2000.

Democrats have been in the minority for most of the time she has served in the Senate, but Feinstein takes pride in getting legislation and funding for California through a Republican-controlled Congress. In particular she points to environmental projects, including her efforts to purchase and protect 16,000 acres of salt ponds in the Bay Area for wetlands restoration, add 25,500 acres to Redwood National Park and expand the protected part of the Mojave Desert by 400,000 acres.

"Those for me are pieces of legislation that last and make a big difference for people," Feinstein said.

Nationally, however, Feinstein is better known for her roles in two high-profile areas — judicial nominations and intelligence oversight — through her work on the Judiciary and Intelligence committees.

She was at the forefront of the Supreme Court nomination battles last fall and winter, famously asking Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. to bypass his legal opinion on end-of-life issues and share his feelings "as a man."

"Judges are people. People interpret the law differently based not just on their legal basis but on their selves," Feinstein said in the interview. "This is where mercy, where care and compassion comes into your understanding of what the law means…. He didn't give any of that human dimension."

Largely for that reason, Feinstein voted against Roberts even though most Senate Democrats voted for him. She also voted against President Bush's next Supreme Court nominee, Samuel Alito.

Feinstein stands by those votes. One that she wishes she could do over is her vote to give the president authority to use force against Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

"Had I known then what I know now, I would never have voted with the president to use force," Feinstein said, noting that as a member of the Intelligence Committee, she had better access than other senators to the administration's intelligence on Iraq's weapons programs.

"What I've learned since then is that not only was the intelligence bad and wrong, but it was misused by this administration," she said.

Important committees

Feinstein's dual assignments on the Judiciary and Intelligence committees have made her a pivotal figure in the debate over whether the Bush administration has the right to eavesdrop on citizens without first seeking warrants, another issue that is likely to carry over into the next congressional session.

She is one of just seven senators on a special subcommittee set up to receive regular briefings on the controversial program, and the only one of the Democrats who is on the Judiciary Committee, which has drafted legislation to regulate the program.

As a result, when she announced that, based on what she had been told, there was no reason that the administration couldn't get warrants for the National Security Agency's eavesdropping, her views swayed many of her Senate colleagues.

"She has really exercised leadership on the NSA controversy," said Caroline Fredrickson, Washington legislative director of the American Civil Liberties Union. "Her colleagues take her very seriously on these issues, and many senators follow her lead."

Another area in which Feinstein may have new influence is voting procedures. Because of her rising seniority, she is in line to become chairwoman of the Rules Committee if Democrats take the majority. The Rules Committee, in addition to being in charge of Senate administration, also has jurisdiction over election procedures and campaign finance.

Feinstein said one of her first orders of business if she became chairwoman would be to start a review of the election process — whether electronic voting is reliable, whether paper records need to be kept, whether new changes are needed in campaign finance rules.

"The time has come to look at this patchwork of election laws across the country and set national standards," Feinstein said. "It has created a really unstable voting system across America."

But the biggest thing Feinstein hopes to accomplish in a new term is to usher in a new era of civility and bipartisanship in the Senate. That may be tough, with many Democrats nursing grievances and some seeking payback.

"My great hope is that if Democrats are able to take over the Senate, that we will show that this can be a new day and there will be a new bipartisan spirit, and we will work across the aisle on a consistent basis," Feinstein said.

Does she really think that will happen?

"Well," she said, "we'll see."

http://www.dianne2006.com/articleop.php?id=128