Mitchell’s Musings 9-11-17: More Thoughts of the Week Daniel J.B. Mitchell In a recent musing, I reflected on that week’s prior events.1 Here is another such weekly reflection. The Median Voter Recently, California’s Democratic U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein was booed by members of her own party for essentially saying that she hoped Trump would improve as a president. She has to make a decision soon on whether to run for another term in the U.S. Senate. At age 84, she may very well decide not to run, regardless of boos or praise. However, the folks who booed her seemed to have little sense of what a senator does. Here is one critic: “We don’t need to work across the aisle. We don’t need bipartisanship. We don’t need compromise. What we need to do is fight,” said Pat Harris, a Studio City attorney and one of five little-known Democratic challengers who have opened committees to run against her.2 I trust that most LERA readers, with their backgrounds in negotiations and in working things out (if possible), will find such a sentiment anomalous. The problem is that California has all kinds of “interests” in Washington and with the federal government. It gets disaster aid when bad things happen. It gets a lot of Medicaid (Medi-Cal) funding. Etc., etc. (Do I really need to point these facts out?) So, yes, if you want to be a senator, you had better learn to compromise and to deal with folks with whom you disagree. It can’t just be fighting and nothing else. “It’s time for Dianne Feinstein to go,” said Ben Becker, co-founder of San Francisco Berniecrats. “She’s not looking out for people of color and poor people, those who don’t have equal footing in Donald Trump’s America. Her argument for civility and bipartisanship will lead us down a very, very dark path with this current administration.”3
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http://employmentpolicy.org/page-1775968/5035539#sthash.8D6Gw8Lp.dpbs. http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article171652372.html. 3 Ibid. 2
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