'I’ve had a long and serious talk with her': Schumer sidesteps chatter over booting Feinstein after Supreme Court hearings

Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer declined to shed light on the internal party dynamics surrounding Senator Dianne Feinstein’s leadership of Democrats on the Judiciary Committee, after liberals skewered her for being too deferential to Republicans at the Amy Coney Barrett hearings.

“I’ve had a long and serious talk with Senator Feinstein. That’s all I’m going to say about it right now,” Mr Schumer said at a press conference on Tuesday of Ms Feinstein’s handling last week of the battle over Ms Barrett’s Supreme Court nomination.

Donald Trump picked Ms Barrett, a well-known conservative on the Seventh Circuit US Court of Appeals, to replace the late progressive icon Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Several liberal activists and political thinkers have called for Ms Feinstein to step down from her leadership position among Democrats on the panel in the wake of the hearings.

Ms Feinstein, a California Democrat who has served in the Senate since 1992, was outwardly cordial with Ms Barrett last week, and even commended the Judiciary Committee’s Republican chairman, Lindsey Graham, for his “leadership” and “fairness” at the hearings.

“Mr. Chairman, I just want to thank you. This has been one of the best set of hearings that I’ve participated in. And I want to thank you for your fairness and the opportunity of going back and forth. It leaves one with a lot of hopes, a lot of questions and even some ideas — perhaps some good bipartisan legislation we can put together to make this great country even better,” she said last Thursday at the final hearing’s conclusion.

“Thank you so much for your leadership,” Ms Feinstein said.

She later rose from her chair and gave Mr Graham, who was not wearing a mask, a hug.

Earlier in the week, other Democrats, such as Minnesota’s Amy Klobucher, had called the hearings a “sham” and argued they were “illegitimate” as millions of Americans had already cast early ballots for the 2020 presidential election.

Ms Feinstein did press Ms Barrett on a number of issues, including her record on abortion rights and Obamacare. And she indicated she would not support the judge’s nomination based on the political circumstances and Republicans’ hypocrisy for filling a Supreme Court days before a presidential election after refusing to hold hearings for Barack Obama’s 2016 nominee, Merrick Garland, seven months out from that year’s election.

But Supreme Court hearings are equal parts substance and political theatre, and Ms Feinstein’s insistence on maintaining utmost decorum did not project the strongest Democratic front against Ms Barrett’s confirmation, and lent the hearings an air of bipartisan legitimacy.

“If the goal was to suggest the process itself was illegitimate, [Ms Feinstein] undermined that goal by instead giving the hearings a sheen of legitimacy […] especially with her decision to compliment Senator Graham on how they were conducted,” said Amy Steigerwalt, a professor of political science at Georgia State University.

Demand Justice, a liberal advocacy group that has opposed the Trump administration’s judicial picks over the last three and a half years, was one of the first organisations last Thursday to call for Ms Feinstein’s ouster from the top spot among Democrats on the Judiciary Committee.

“It's time for Sen. Feinstein to step down from her leadership position on the Senate Judiciary Committee. If she won't, her colleagues need to intervene,” said Brian Fallon, Demand Justice’s executive director.

“If Senate Democrats are going to get their act together on the courts going forward, they cannot be led by someone who treats [young environmental] activists with contempt and the Republican theft of a Supreme Court seat with kid gloves,” Mr Fallon said.