[jmyeet]

Senator Feinstein ran for reelection at aged 85. A full term in the Senate is 6 years. So if she didn't die in that time (which is a very real possibility at her age) then she would be 91 at the end of her term. That's... ridiculous.

She seems to be in clear mental decline now, so much so that she stepped down (some say was removed) from the senate Judiciary committee [1].

So what allowed her to get renominated? Simple she was good at the most important thing for a large blue state Democratic Senator: fundraising. For whatever reason, she was a massive rainmaker. You have to be to be nominated as a Demorat for Senate in California. kamala Harris was too. It's pretty much how she rose to being VP now.

It's also why Chuck Schumer is the Senate Majority Leader and also why you will never see any serious Wall Street reform under the current system. It is the core of Schumer's fundraising base.

So there's a fine line between fundraising and corruption (legally speaking). Unfortuantely this Supreme Court has decided that money is speech [2], which has made all this even more important.

As polarized as things may seem, all that is on social issues. Both parties have class solidarity with the capital-owning class that has bought both sides.

So we can look at Feinstein's "corruption" in isolation but that's really missing the forest for the trees.

[1]: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/23/dianne-feinstein-st...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC#:~:text....

[adfm]

I just want to point out that the headline for this should be updated to California from "Cali" as it comes off as something somebody from out-of-state would say. For those unfamiliar with such things, you don't say "San Fran" or "Frisco" and only tourists and non-locals call it "Cali."

If you think 91 is a ridiculous age for a senator, you might want to recalibrate your feigned outrage a notch or two. The racist bigot from the great state of South Carolina, Strom Thurmond, has her beat by at least a decade (b 1902 d 2003). Feinstein is a spring chicken next to Thurmond (may he rot in pieces).

[aksss]

> “this Supreme Court”

Assuming you mean Citizens United, decided twelve years ago, the Court has had a nearly 50% turnover since then. It was still “the Robert’s Court” but hardly “this Court”. But the current Court would likely hold a majority for same conclusion of CU - that the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, which prohibited any corporation, non-profit organization or labor union from making an "electioneering communication" within 30 days of a primary or 60 days of an election was an unconstitutional limit on free speech.

Not to relitigate it, but it’s not as if collectives of people weren’t making campaign communications prior to BCRA or CU. They traditionally did. If one has an issue with corporate personhood, one has to rewind 100 years and do impact analysis on all that it would mean in practice. Probably a bloodier mess than just prohibiting speech (property rights, taxation, etc).

[jmyeet]

It's still the Roberts Supreme Court. Some of the actors may have changed (eg RBG, Scalia) but do you really think the current makeup of the court would rule otherwise if that case was decided today?

[aksss]

Not just some, 4 of 9 have turned over and Beyer’s replacement pre-appointed, oddly enough. The balance has also shifted. It’s a different Court than it was twelve years ago, and lazy to conflate them regardless of whether you think the result would be the same.

To that point, need I remind that the case was decided unanimously, with five dissenting only in part? Ginsburg, Steven’s, Sotomayor, Beyer, and Thomas had disagreement in how to reach the end result, but signed on for the end result. It’s not hard to understand why:

Fundamentally, the idea of banning a book critical of Hillary Clinton in the run up to an election or primary is a bit hard to swallow as benefitting any but the Hillary Clinton’s of the world.

Evidently, how you rationalize banning it was arguably worse in principle than how you rationalize allowing it.

[Mountain_Skies]

Wish there was a good solution to the problem of those in mental decline keeping hold of a political office. I don't like the idea of strict age limits since different people age at different rates. Any sort of competency test is likely to end up being gamed by one side or the other. Ultimately it is up to the voters in the electing jurisdiction to decide. Much of the problem in the Senate and House seems to stem from these very old office holders having accumulated lots of power. Some of that is due to seniority rules. Perhaps once an office holder gets past their first term, "seniority" should be assigned by rotation or random, rather than by how many times to same person has been sent back to Washington. The current system seems to reward power hoarding and punishes those districts/states that give undesirable politicians the boot.

[latchkey]

> Any sort of competency test is likely to end up being gamed by one side or the other.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/23/trump-mental-fitnes...

[cyanydeez]

Honestly, just use ranked choice voting. The public functions just fine when the means of democracy aren't shoved inside binary choices.

[throwaway0a5e]

>So what allowed her to get renominated? Simple she was good at the most important thing for a large blue state Democratic Senator: fundraising. For whatever reason, she was a massive rainmaker. You have to be to be nominated as a Demorat for Senate in California. kamala Harris was too. It's pretty much how she rose to being VP now.

She's been in a position of power within the CA portion of the party for so long she'd be a rainmaker even if she was a complete dolt (which she is, IMO).

[Fatnino]

Why do you say "this Supreme Court"? The make up of the court has changed dramatically since.

I don't think it's better now. Just different.

[jonny_eh]

Not different when it comes to this issue though. More of the current justices likely agree that money == speech.

[Mountain_Skies]

>likely

Perhaps but until they rule that way, they're not the ones responsible for that ruling. Anyone who follows more of the Court's rulings than just the ones the press decides to highlight will notice how frequently judges from "the other side" end up agreeing. In addition to the many 9-0 rulings, there are many split rulings where the split isn't based on which party's president nominated that justice.

[chipsa]

Money !== speech, but money is essential to speech. I can say things, but if people can't hear me, because I can't spend the money to get that speech out, does it really matter?

The other thing I hear a lot is: corporations aren't people! But they're made of people. I want the EFF and ACLU and SAF and Humane Society to be able to advocate on my behalf. That's why I give them money.

[jmyeet]

Except that what we've done is not given the ability of groups of people to be heard per se, we've given disproportionately powerful voices to the wealthy and allowed corporations to dictate policy to an extent that almost no individual ever could.

[chipsa]

The government argument in the case was: there is no limits to the government's power with respect to corporate speech during an election.

> During the original oral argument, Deputy Solicitor General Malcolm L. Stewart (representing the FEC) argued that under Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, the government would have the power to ban books if those books contained even one sentence expressly advocating the election or defeat of a candidate and were published or distributed by a corporation or labor union. In response to this line of questioning, Stewart further argued that under Austin the government could ban the digital distribution of political books over the Amazon Kindle or prevent a union from hiring an author to write a political book.

Given that, is it an surprise that the Supreme Court found that it conflicted with the First Amendment?

[gwbrooks]

Citizens United, whether you agree with it or not, builds on several previous SCOTUS rulings around campaign finance.

To suggest that the rules (or lack thereof) completely changed with that ruling is to misunderstand the history of campaign-finance law over the past ~50 years.