Editorial: Feinstein should not dismiss concerns of changing electorate

It takes a lot of courage to read off your political resume to a group of kids and teenagers.

Or maybe just a great deal of hubris.

That might come as news to Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

The internet has been ablaze with a video of Feinstein talking down to a group of schoolchildren seeking her support for the Green New Deal, a climate change reform bill working its way through Congress. The 85-year-old senator from California has been publicly critical of the effort, which was incepted by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Edward J. Markey, stating Congress has no way to fund it.

There’s no denying that Feinstein, who sits on the U.S. Senate subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies, knows how to navigate byzantine budgetary procedures better than most people a sixth of her age. But her encounter with the schoolchildren is more than just a showdown about environmental policies.

It’s about the callousness long-tenured politicians have toward their increasingly diversifying populaces’ needs.

California’s fifth-term senator showed us last week just how bad it can get.

“You didn’t vote for me,” Feinsten remarked in response to a 16-year-old student’s question.

She’s right: Young voters largely didn’t vote for her in 2018.

But the senator’s attitude fuels a dangerous mindset. Although last year’s midterm elections saw unprecedented participation from 18- to 25-year-old voters, dismissive dialogue from politicians serves to disengage young people from engaging civically.

That might have been lost on Feinstein in her nearly three decades in office. The senator has accomplished little since the pass of the millennium, save for an expired assault weapons ban, a voting record showing her support of gay marriage in 1996 and a seat on the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

Her supposed political acumen has featured her caving into partisan rhetoric from her political opponents – often against the overwhelming wishes of her state’s constituents.

Feinstein voted against a Medicare-for-all bill in 2017, despite 53 percent of Californians supporting single-payer healthcare. She has long spoke of the need to pass legislation securing the legal status of undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children, but has yet to introduce robust legislation – let alone secure the passage of a bill – aimed to accomplishing that.

Perhaps worst of all, she has consistently attempted to boost federal government surveillance programs. That includes her 2013 FISA Improvements Act, meant to extend the National Security Agency’s ability to search records without warrants, and her 2018 vote in favor a bill to boost the FBI’s ability to probe citizens’ digital communications.

These collective failures only further sting in light of Feinstein’s tasteless comments about her not needing to care about the concerns of those who didn’t vote for her – especially when they’re predominantly children who are admirably trying to interface with their elected official.

Sure, Feinstein wasn’t denying climate change in the video. And she has the right to reasonably disagree with the specifics of the Green New Deal. But her pomposity in responding to the sincere – and very real – concerns of her constituents is a slap in the face to people who, unlike her, will have to live with the consequences of climate change for the majority of their lives. Feinstein embraced the same condescending attitude driving the young electorate’s disillusionment with government.

In her conversation with the children, Feinstein suggested that, “People should listen a little bit.”

She would do well to heed that advice for the next six years.