The U.S. Senate was still known as an old men’s club in The Year of the Woman, 1992, when the election of Dianne Feinstein of California and three other Democratic women increased the number of female senators by 200% to all six. I was reporting to Congress at the time, and it was common at the time for there to be at least one elderly (male) senator whose weakness was widely whispered. Still, their peers covered for them, which made reporting on a senator’s competency quite difficult.

Three decades and a storied career later, nearly 90-year-old Feinstein is the oldest member of the Senate, and people are no longer just whispering. Fellow Democrats are publicly calling for their resignation. That makes Feinstein another trailblazer, albeit not in a good way this time.

However, there are several reasons why Feinstein faces this scrutiny, even if former senators of a certain age and a current member, Republican Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, were just reelected at 89 in November.

Unfortunately, her gender is a likely factor, but relatively minor. Another reason is this: Feinstein represents nearly 40 million people (13 times more than Grassley) in a blue state brimming with politically ambitious, skilled Democrats coveting her seat. Three are already in the 2024 election race to succeed her: Reps. Barbara Lee, Katie Porter and Adam

B.

Ship. It was an ally of Lee with his own ambitions, Rep. Ro Khanna, who made headlines on Wednesday tweet that Feinstein should resign: it is clear that she can no longer fulfill her duties.

Even many of her fans had hoped that Feinstein would not compete again in 2018; since then she has not asked any questions about her abilities. Like others, I supported Feinstein’s decision to serve out her six-year term until next year. Now, though, she’s been absent from Washington since February, when she was diagnosed with shingles, and won’t be returning Monday when the Senate meets again after spring break.

That suggests the other big reason Feinstein is attracting unusual attention: she missed, seriously. With Democrats holding only a 51-49 majority in the Senate in a divided Congress, and with similarly slim margins on committees, full party member presence is essential to advance their agenda.

The provocation to the latest publicity was the recent admission by Richard J. Durbin, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, that Feinstein’s absence has slowed pressure from Democrats to confirm President Biden’s judicial nominees and provide more balance to a federal bank that was packed with Republican appointees during the Trump era.

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year. Without Feinstein, the committee is split evenly, 10 Democrats and 10 Republicans; it last voted on nominees for federal judges two months ago.

I can’t consider candidates under these circumstances, Durbin said, because a tie vote is a losing vote on the committee.

Feinstein’s concession to her critics Wednesday, a statement admitting unspecified health complications and asking the Senate to name a temporary Democratic replacement for her on the judicial panel, is unlikely to appeal to those who want her to step down.

In California, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has vowed to name a black woman if Feinstein leaves her seat, is probably just as happy that the senator is serving her term, rather than being forced to elect someone else when a competitive Democratic primary is already underway .

Still, he should be prepared, perhaps choosing a janitor to warm up the seat until the 2024 winner can take it. While Feinstein seems adamant that she’ll stay on the job, that may not be possible.

In 2020, Feinstein was pressured to relinquish her seat as a senior Democrat on the Judiciary Committees to Durbin amid outrage in the party that she literally hugged then-Chairman of the Judiciary Lindsey Graham, the Republican from South Carolina after he rammed through Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the Supreme. Court weeks after Judge Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s death (and just ahead of an election that would ultimately return Senate Democrats to majority control).

That episode was illustrative of Feinstein’s decline in achievements and status. It’s hard to understand why some politicians persist for so long; too often it’s sad when they do. Feinstein’s case is one of the saddest, given the cloud that now obscures a proud legacy.

The senator has so many laurels she could have rested on.

@jackiekcalmes