California is so underrepresented in Washington D.C. that it seems a shame to have to choose only one of the two major candidates for U.S. Senate.
In today’s battle between California and the Trump administration, we need every able politician we got there. And the race has produced two candidates – the 25-year incumbent Dianne Feinstein and the President Pro Tem of the State Senate, Kevin de León — who could do well for California there.
We also needn’t choose between the two approaches to Washington that they’re offering because we need both. Feinstein’s emphasis on looking for ways to compromise and make progress makes sense. But De León’s call for more confrontation with Trump – including supporting impeachment – is badly needed too. California can’t really live with this president.
So why not send both Dianne Feinstein and Kevin de León to Washington?
Sadly, both can’t go as senator, since we get only two of those, same as Delaware.
What to do?
Two people, two positions.
For a host of reasons, it makes more sense to send de León as senator. That’s not a progressive-vs.-moderate judgment. (And De León is a legislator and compromiser who will inevitably come to seem too moderate to the Berniecrats now promoting him). It’s about having a younger, more-in-touch person who has been leading the anti-Trump strategy, and who has, by dint of age, more long-term potential. Feinstein won’t ever be the leader of the Senate. But it’s not hard to imagine De León leading U.S. Senate Democrats, given his experience in leadership in Sacramento.
But why throw away Feinstein’s experience and connections? We need those too in these times.
Essentially, Feinstein has pitched herself as a can-do diplomat, an emissary to Washington who gets things done. Sort of like California’s Secretary of State (a job title that in the state context, belongs to Alex Padilla, who is really an elections officer and clerk).
We can’t call her Secretary of State. But California, which is more and more a very different country than the United States, needs to have her there doing diplomacy. So the legislature and the governor should get together and agree to appoint her: as California’s ambassador to the United States.
We could even open an embassy.