California Progressive Democrats Want to Censure Dianne Feinstein
California progressives have had enough of Dianne Feinstein and her centrist politics. After two highly publicized incidents where the long-serving senator bolted party lines to give the Bush Administration and its Republican Senate colleagues much-needed wins—the confirmations of homobigot and racist Judge Leslie Southwick and the pro-waterboarding new Attorney General Michael Mukasey—Max Follmer at the Huffington Post reports progressive activists will ask the California Democratic Party to censure the long-serving senator at its executive board meeting this weekend.
The move comes as Feinstein again finds herself under fire for saying Thursday that she now supports granting legal immunity to telecom companies that shared customer email and phone messages with the federal government as part of the warrantless surveillance program.
"Dianne Feinstein does not listen to the people of California," said Rick Jacobs, president of the Courage Campaign, a progressive organization in California. "She supports George Bush's agenda time after time."
This comes after Feinstein—formerly the longtime mayor of San Francisco and worth an estimated $50 million—was a guest aboard Air Force during the recent wildfires and "remarked privately that she found her conversation with [President George] Bush 'illuminating.'
The attempts at censure should be "illuminating" and will face an uphill battle.
