The California senator Dianne Feinstein will not seek to retain her position as the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate judiciary committee.
“After serving as the lead Democrat on the Judiciary Committee for four years, I will not seek the chairmanship or ranking member position in the next Congress,” Feinstein said in a statement on Monday.
“California is a huge state confronting two existential threats – wildfire and drought – that are only getting worse with climate change. In the next Congress, I plan to increase my attention on those two crucial issues,” she added.
Dick Durbin, the senator of Illinois and the Democratic whip, said he would seek the job.
“I intend to seek the top Democratic position on the Judiciary Committee in the 117th Congress. I have served on the Committee for 22 years, and I am its most senior member who does not currently serve atop another Senate Committee,” he said. “We have to roll up our sleeves and get to work on undoing the damage of the last four years and protecting fundamental civil and human rights.”
Feinstein, 87, has faced intensifying calls from progressives to retire from the judiciary committee following her handling of the supreme court confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett.
Feinstein ended the contentious hearings with a full-body embrace of Lindsey Graham, the committee’s Republican chair, and praised the proceedings as “one of the best set of hearings that I’ve participated in”, despite many other Democrats lamenting the Republicans’ approach to filling the seat of the late justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Brian Fallon, Demand Justice’s executive director, argued that Feinstein had “undercut Democrats’ position” during the hearings. Naral Pro-Choice America, a leading reproductive rights group, called Feinstein “wildly out of step with the American people”, saying the “committee needs new leadership”.
Feinstein also irked some of her fellow Democrats at Barrett’s first confirmation hearing, in 2017 for an appeals court, when she said that Barrett’s opposition to abortion must be rooted in her religion and questioned if it would influence her rulings on the bench, saying the “dogma lives loudly within you”.
Republicans seized on the phrase, saying it was offensive to Catholics. The backlash helped Barrett rise in the ranks of supreme court hopefuls.
Feinstein has had a long career in politics. She became mayor of San Francisco in 1978, following the assassinations of the activist Harvey Milk and mayor George Moscone. She has served in the US Senate since 1992, and played an important role in the investigations into CIA torture during the wars in the Middle East as the former chairwoman of the intelligence panel. She faced a tough primary race in 2018, when the California Democratic party voted to endorse her opponent.
Feinstein said she planned to continue to serve on the judiciary, appropriations and intelligence panels but would not seek the role of top Democrat on any of those committees.
In a statement, the Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, said he was “grateful for Senator Feinstein’s leadership and contributions to our caucus and country” in the judiciary post.
Vivian Ho contributed to this report
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