Feinstein for the U.S. Senate: Competence Over a Question

In the frustration with government that fuels the current anti-government and anti-incumbent rage among voters, it is still necessary to distinguish between good incumbents and bad. For government is no simple monolith of evil or virtue but rather a complex collection of disparate individuals. The efforts of the good do help to neutralize the bad and keep government functioning as it should--to serve the people.

This is the calculus that must inform voter choice. With that in mind, we turn to the choice that voters must make in the contest for U.S. Senate between Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein and her challenger, Rep. Mike Huffington (R-Santa Barbara). Feinstein is an industrious, capable legislator: After two productive years in the Senate, this former San Francisco mayor deserves voter approbation on Nov. 8 for a full six-year term. The Times has not endorsed in a U.S. Senate race since 1976, but in a year of rampant voter disillusionment and alienation, an affirmation of participatory democracy is in order.

This is a race that should not be as close as the polls suggest it is--not because multimillionaire Huffington, a first-term congressman with the thinnest of records, is some right-wing extremist; he isn’t. Nor because Feinstein’s record is so incontrovertibly perfect that it is above criticism; it isn’t. The argument in support of Feinstein is simple and compelling: Voters should approve her bid for a full term because she has done a good job for California--and she has done absolutely nothing to warrant her displacement by a relative political unknown. So why run the risk of making a change?

After barely two years in the Senate, filling out the term originally won by now-Gov. Pete Wilson, Feinstein has a record highlighted by leading roles in winning approval of the praiseworthy California Desert Protection Act and of the seminal federal ban on assault weapons.

Her leverage as a member of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee has also helped to enhance the state’s clout. She has worked diligently to protect the state’s economic interests at a time when the struggling California economy has needed every bit of help it can get. The Feinstein voice certainly was valuable when Southern California labored to recover from the Northridge quake. And she has opposed Proposition 187, the Draconian measure that would deny social services to illegal immigrants, on the grounds that it’s poorly written and unenforceable. That took courage.

What’s also notable about her tenure is the extent to which her tenacious, non-showboating style has won her influence and respect not only among fellow Democrats but Republicans too. She is someone people can deal with--savvy, reasonable, focused. She understands the problems of other legislators from either party. In fact she is one Democrat on the Nov. 8 ballot whom many prominent California Republicans have felt comfortable endorsing. Dianne Feinstein commands high regard from many quarters because she works hard, she works smart and she delivers. You need not agree with her on every vote--and we don’t--but it’s difficult to deny that she has a balanced, impressive record.

Huffington, on the other hand, has failed to demonstrate any reason that Californians should choose him over Feinstein. And, in contradiction to his stated support of Proposition 187, he had to admit this week that he had employed an illegal immigrant in his own home for five years.

We do not question the seriousness of Huffington’s ambition. Certainly anyone who has put so much of his own money into pursuing political office (he has said he plans to spend “around $20 million” by Election Day) is not to be taken lightly. Moreover, the congressman’s view that the government that does less in effect does more can be a useful, if vaguely iconoclastic, view. Much of what government does needs to be reviewed critically from time to time, especially when big-government solutions like President Clinton’s original health care reform plan are on the table (even Feinstein had second thoughts on that one).

Nor should Huffington’s lackluster record as a freshman congressman be seen as wholly predictive. Few in the House of Representatives accomplish much in their first term. And Huffington’s wife, Arianna Stassinopoulos Huffington, who has ties to an unusual religious organization, should not automatically compel a negative judgment on his candidacy; she is scarcely the first controversial spouse of an elected official.

No, the issue in this campaign is simple. Is Feinstein’s record such as to require her replacement? The answer, resoundingly, is no. Put another way, has her performance these last two years been such as to warrant the full term she requests? The answer is absolutely yes. This is one U.S. senator who has done a solid job, who is persuasive and effective on Capitol Hill and who deserves to be reelected. The Times enthusiastically endorses her.