Dianne Feinstein Steps Back From Senate Judiciary

Under pressure, in order to resign to the place that she occupied for more than 30 years, Senator Diane Feinstein On Thursday, she announced that she wanted to temporarily move away from the important committee of the Senate from the continuing health.

The 89-year-old California democrat, who is the oldest member of the Congress, was far from the Senate since February due to the diagnosis of tiles, missing about 58 votes.

The representative of the senator said San Francisco Chronicle This week she worked at home when she recovers from the virus.

But with the Senate, appointed on Monday after a two -week break, there were fears that her further absence would stop working in the Judicial Committee, of which she is a member.

After narrowly loses control of the House of Representatives Republicans in last year's intermediate elections President Joe Biden was under pressure to continue to use most of the democrats in the Senate to continue confirmation as many federal judges as possibleField

Given the subtle majority of the Democrats, the committee did not vote for any new candidates for the federal bench since February 16. According to the current rules, the tied vote in the committee means that the candidate cannot go to the voting in the full Senate.

Senator Dick Durbin, a democrat from Illinois, who became the chairman of the judicial committee when Feinstein refused the role After criticism from the activists, he said Politician Last month, he was “concerned” because they could not promote new candidates forward without the return of Faynstein.

IN statement Late, Wednesday Feinstein said that she expected to return to work by the end of March, but these “constant complications” prevented her.

“I intend to return as soon as possible, as soon as my medical team advises me to travel safely,” she said in a statement. “Meanwhile, I am still committed to this work and I will continue to work from the house in the San Francisco.”

Recognizing that her absence complicates things for her colleagues, Faynstein said that she asked the majority leader in the Senate Chuck Schumer Temporarily appoint another democrat to the committee.