Results tagged “Dianne Feinstein” from South Bay Pipeline

S.F. Chronicle columnists Matier & Ross toy with the possibility that Dianne Feinstein will retire in 2012. And as long as they're speculating, why not float some names of potential replacements:

Those said to be looking include Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Rep. Jane Harman of Venice (Los Angeles County), Controller John Chiang and Secretary of State Debra Bowen.

As to Harman, Matier & Ross may want to check in with their colleague, Willie Brown, who had her running for governor a few weeks ago.

M&R note that Feinstein is 76, and may not want to commit to serving through her 85th birthday. (Though it hasn't deterred Robert Byrd or either senator from Hawaii.)

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says his wife, Maria Shriver, is not interested in running for governor.

This announcement comes after former Speaker Willie Brown mentioned Shriver and Jane Harman as potential Democratic candidates in his weekly column.

"Willie loves drama. Willie loves entertainment," Schwarzenegger told the Sacramento Bee's editorial board. "It fills his column, so God bless him. ... I can guarantee you that my wife has absolutely no interest in the job."

Ditto for Harman.

Keep that track record in mind when you read Brown's latest column, wherein he posits Dianne Feinstein as a potential candidate.

After Gavin Newsom dropped out of the governor's race last week, the search was on for Democrats who might try to impede Jerry Brown's clear path to the party's nomination.

Since this conversation is largely about money -- who has it, and who can raise it fast -- one of the names on everybody's list is South Bay Rep. Jane Harman. Harman, who ran for governor in 1998, visited the Breeze offices a couple weeks back and made it pretty clear that she has no intention of running again.

Harman is a security wonk, first and foremost, and has been focused lately on corruption in Afghanistan -- a topic that wouldn't be anywhere near the governor's portfolio. In the editorial meeting, she lamented that the office has been greatly diminished over the years as Sacramento has become more and more dysfunctional.

Nevertheless, the Great Mentioner isn't giving up so easily. Over the weekend, no less a mentioner than Former Speaker Willie Brown mentioned Harman in his weekend column.

No comment from Harmanland, so we take it that her earlier comments stand.

Also being mentioned: Dianne Feinstein, Bill Lockyer, Loretta Sanchez, Bob Hertzberg, and ... Maria Shriver?

Carlos Moreno, a justice of the California Supreme Court, is reportedly on President Obama's short list for the U.S. Supreme Court.

Moreno is an L.A. native, and started his law career in the L.A. City Attorney's office. He was appointed to the California Supreme Court by Gov. Gray Davis in 2001, after serving three years as a federal judge. According to reports, he was recommended to Obama by Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

Obama has said he wants an empathetic judge, and Moreno seems to meet that qualification. He and his wife, Christine, have cared for their autistic niece for the past eight years. Here is Moreno, who chairs a Blue Ribbon Commission on Children in Foster Care, discussing that experience in 2006:

My own commitment to the issue of foster care is both professional and personal... For close to the past six years, my wife and I have been relative caregivers for our special needs 10-year-old niece. She was removed from her mother's home in New Jersey by the state children's services department.

Weighing just 33 pounds, she was suffering from neglect, dehydration, and malnutrition. When she was placed in a local hospital, she was belatedly diagnosed as autistic and developmentally delayed, completely lacking in life skills such as language, potty training and even something so basic as chewing food (at 5 years old she was still taking food from a baby bottle). Her mother had not sought services; in fact, owing to her own schizophrenia, she had diligently avoided any contact with social and medical services and relatives who could assist her. We took custody of our niece, because the only other option was... to institutionalize her for perhaps the rest of her life.

My wife and I have struggled over the past five years, dealing with children's services in New Jersey for assistance, but also relying upon local, L.A. County children's service providers -- medical, educational, occupational, behavioral -- to address the overwhelming problem of caring for an autistic child. Neither my wife nor I had any prior experience, of any significant note, with the healthcare system, much less any experience in dealing with autistic children. And I tell you, this has been perhaps the most difficult experience I've ever had in my entire life.

The couple had to hire a lawyer to fight the L.A. Unified School District over their daughter's educational program. Here's Moreno's wife, who is an artist and a college professor, speaking to the L.A. Daily Journal about that last year:

"We had to hire a lawyer to defend her educational rights," Chris Moreno said. "Los Angeles Unified held a secret Individualized Education Assessment meeting and changed her school and canceled all her services... They took care of it as a budget item. They never met her. They didn't know what her needs are.... She has myself and my husband as her advocates, and it's still so grueling a process."

Also under consideration, according to the AP, are Solicitor General Elena Kagan, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and U.S. Appeals Court judges Sonia Sotomayor and Diane Pamela Wood.

According to the AP, Sen. Dianne Feinstein spoke with Leon Panetta last night, and is now comfortable supporting him for CIA Director:

"I had a good discussion with him. I'm confident that he understands. I am supportive," Feinstein said. "I've known him for 20 years. I know him to be a man of credibility and a man of conscience and a man of talent, and I believe he will surround himself with top-notch staff from the intelligence community."

Feinstein had said she wanted an intelligence professional in the top job, possibly Steve Kappes, who is now a deputy to CIA Director Michael V. Hayden. Kappes is credited with restoring morale at the CIA in the wake of the morale-crushing tenure of Porter Goss. The New York Times reports that Panetta plans to keep Kappes as his Number Two.

Still no comment from Jane Harman.

Who knows if this has anything to do with Sen. Dianne Feinstein's chilly reaction to the choice of Leon Panetta for CIA Director, but back during the Clinton administration the two were on opposite sides of a base closure dispute.

In 1995, Feinstein and other California politicians strenuously objected to plans to close numerous bases in California, including the Long Beach Naval Shipyard. They lobbied their fellow Californian, Clinton chief of staff Leon Panetta, to encourage the president to reject the closure list and force the base closure commission to start over.

Clinton ended up approving the list, but (in somewhat typical fashion) he also denounced the commission and said he was particularly outraged by the economic effect the closures would have on California. Panetta was put in the position of assuring California lawmakers, including Feinstein, that -- contrary to all available evidence -- the cuts would not be as bad as they appeared. Feinstein was not pleased.

Two years later, both Panetta and Feinstein were interested in running for California governor. Panetta didn't want to run against Feinstein, who then as now was the Democrats' strongest statewide candidate. So he waited for Feinstein to make up her mind.

And waited.

And waited.

By the time Feinstein decided to stay out of the race, in January 1998, the primary was only four months away. Panetta reasoned that he would not have enough time to raise the money needed for a statewide campaign. So he dropped out as well.

Interestingly, the person who filled the centrist void once Feinstein withdrew was... South Bay Rep. Jane Harman. Feinstein's supporters encouraged Harman to get into the race against Lt. Gov. Gray Davis, who was viewed as a weak general election candidate. Harman was able to self-finance, but due to her late entry she never caught fire and ended up in third, behind Davis and airline mogul Al Checchi.

Wouldn't it be odd if Feinstein again tried to block Panetta, again in favor of Harman?

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-CA, will soon be the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee. As such, she'll have a lot to say about who gets confirmed to be the new CIA Director. Here's what she has to say about Leon Panetta:

"I was not informed about the selection of Leon Panetta to be the CIA Director. I know nothing about this, other than what I've read," said Senator Feinstein, who will chair the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in the 111th Congress. "My position has consistently been that I believe the Agency is best-served by having an intelligence professional in charge at this time."

Chilly.