by Robin Epley
Millennial and Gen Z voters are witnessing what I call “the last of the first women.”
These are the “first women” to earn a place in American politics that, frankly, should have been achievable for us long before. It’s fallen on my generation to witness these “first women” at the height of their power and as they near the end of their barrier-shattering careers.
At this point, we should be able to thank them for their service as they gracefully move aside for the next generation of brilliant young women.
Or not.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the longest-serving woman in the history of the U.S. Senate and the oldest current U.S. senator, refuses to relinquish a job she obviously can’t do anymore. We’ve seen this scenario before, with devastating consequences.
By 2020, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had achieved something close to cult status. Fans of the longtime, liberal justice called her the “Notorious RBG,” she was immortalized in popular culture and ephemera, bobbleheads, tattoos and on T-shirts. The hot ticket item I desperately wanted in those days was a pin that resembled her famous white collars. At 87, she was a feminist pop culture icon.
But since her death in 2020, Ginsburg’s reputation has been reassessed in the minds of many, even some of her most ardent supporters, thanks in large part to her refusal to step down.
Had she retired in 2013, after then-President Barack Obama had won reelection and Democrats had control of the U.S. Senate, America’s political landscape might look very different today. By staying on the bench until her death in 2020 — under the Trump administration — Ginsburg denied Americans the chance to replace her with a like-minded justice.
Her seat went to conservative justice Amy Coney Barrett, who’s helped lead the court away from the liberal ideals Ginsburg established during her decades on the court.
There is, then, a direct line between Ginsburg’s refusal to retire in 2013 and the demolition of American women’s bodily autonomy in 2022, when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
The lesson here was clear: Staying too long in politics or public service is a vanity — and an unforgivable one at that.
It’s curious then, that Feinstein has managed to ignore this reality.
Feinstein was born in 1933, the same year as Ginsburg. And like Ginsburg, she’s another of these “first women”: the first woman to be elected U.S. senator from California, the first woman to chair the Senate Rules Committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee, the first woman to hold the top Democratic position on the Senate Judiciary Committee and the first woman to preside over a U.S. presidential inauguration.
While I don’t personally agree with her Patriot Act-voting, Saudi weapons-selling, illegal information-gathering, nuclear site-supporting, suspiciously large personal wealth-gathering brand of moderate Democrat politicking — I think voters can at least appreciate Feinstein’s more than three decades of service to the American public.
But it’s time to go.
Feinstein’s irrefutable cognitive decline in recent years had already made headlines when, in February, she took a leave of absence from the Senate and was hospitalized for a brief time due to a case of shingles. Feinstein has not been able to perform her duties on the Judiciary Committee since. And in her absence, the Democrats lost their majority — causing the pace of judicial confirmations to slow drastically.
At a time when women’s rights and bodily autonomy are increasingly imperiled by federal judges appointed in the Trump era, Feinstein’s leave of absence from the committee has ensured that the only new judges who are confirmed are those who can muster Republican support.
Now, as with Ginsburg, we can draw a direct line between Feinstein’s selfish refusal to retire and the inability of Democrats to more effectively counteract the judicial damage done to the courts during the Trump years. That damage has threatened, and in some cases, outright stopped, access to abortion care for millions of American women.
Feinstein’s supporters, both men and women, have labeled any legitimate criticism of her as sexist or anti-feminist. But it is neither admirable nor feminist to cling to power.
Nor is it feminist to block the seat from going to another capable woman: California Gov. Gavin Newsom promised in 2021 that he would nominate a Black woman for the Senate. The whispered front-runner is Rep. Barbara Lee of Oakland, who would presumably, at the very least, show up to the job.
No politician elected by the people — and no judge confirmed by representatives of the people — deserves idolatry or sacred treatment. No one is above criticism or removal.
If my mothers and grandmothers had the courage to place these “first women” in these seats of power, and now it is my generation’s bad luck to witness their end, then we must have our own courage to say, “Enough is enough.”
