A San Francisco Chronicle investigation has revealed that lawmakers and staffers close to Sen. Dianne Feinstein are fearing that she is losing her mental facilities, raising concerns that the lawmaker is unable to effectively carry out the responsibilities of her job.
The lawmakers and staffers would only speak to the Chronicle on the condition of anonymity, but they said of the four senators they spoke to, three are Democrats, and everyone who expressed concerns said doing so was painful because of the respect they have for the senator and her career.
While the sources say that some days she is as sharp as she has ever been, other days are extremely difficult for the people around her, and presumably the senator herself.
Colleagues who have known her for years have to introduce themselves to Feinstein, who is 88, before starting conversations, the report details, noting that the senator often repeats questions without any apparent recollection that she already asked them. The California lawmaker who spoke to the Chronicle said officials became so concerned that they have had conversations with other lawmakers about holding an intervention to get Feinstein to resign.
“I have worked with her for a long time and long enough to know what she was like just a few years ago: always in command, always in charge, on top of the details, basically couldn’t resist a conversation where she was driving some bill or some idea. All of that is gone,” the lawmaker told the Chronicle. “She was an intellectual and political force not that long ago, and that’s why my encounter with her was so jarring. Because there was just no trace of that.”
“It’s bad and getting worse,” one lawmaker was quoted as saying.
In a written statement sent to People, Feinstein responded to the report by recalling the work she has successfully completed.
“In the past few months, I successfully led the reauthorization of the bipartisan Violence Against Women Act, secured more direct government funding for my state than any other Democratic senator other than the chairman of the Appropriations Committee and secured additional funding to retain federal firefighters to help California prepare for the upcoming wildfire season," it reads in part.
"The real question is whether I'm still an effective representative for 40 million Californians, and the record shows that I am.”
Some Democrats have been defending Feinstein, painting the accusations that she has lost some of her sharpness as an attack.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said the questioning of Feinstein’s mental health is “unconscionable that, just weeks after losing her beloved husband of more than four decades and after decades of outstanding leadership to our City and State, she is being subjected to these ridiculous attacks that are beneath the dignity in which she has led and the esteem in which she is held.”
Feinstein’s husband died in February after a long battle with cancer
Fellow California Sen. Alex Padilla also defended Feinstein’s work: “As someone who sees her multiple times a week, including on the Senate Judiciary Committee, I can tell you she’s still doing the job and doing it well.”
But this is not the first time Feinstein’s mental health has been questioned. In December 2020, the New Yorker reported that Feinstein was suffering from memory loss.
She defended herself in the Los Angeles Times, but questions have continued to pop up despite Feinstein being able to mostly avoid public view due to the pandemic. What has been seen by the public has not been encouraging.
During a Senatorial hearing, Feinstein asked a witness the same question twice verbatim, and was seemingly unaware that she did it. Later, she shocked fellow Democrats when she praised Republicans during the confirmation hearing of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.
Unlike many of her California colleagues, Feinstein has not been meeting with her constituents in public often. She has not held a town hall meeting since 2017, and has not been to any local events in 2022.
Additionally, she has only raised $5,566 this year, an unusual development because politicians with name recognition typically fundraise for their party even if they don’t plan to seek reelection. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) is retiring after this year, but he still raised over $1 million, which will likely be given to Democratic National Committee coffers after he leaves office.
A poll by the Public Policy Institute of California reveals that Feinstein’s approval rating has dropped 8% in the past year, down to 36%.
“Those who think that they are serving her or honoring her by sweeping all of this under the rug are doing her an enormous disservice,” the California member of Congress told the Chronicle.
If Democrats keep control of Congress after the looming November midterms, Feinstein will be third in line to the president after Leahy retires.