Because, seriously, every state only gets two Senators, and California’s population, at 40 million, is 40% Latino. We are now a “majority-minority” state. Yay, us. I’ve seen this coming for 30+ years, and my little raised-in-Hawaii haole heart is totally fine with that.

Senator Dianne Feinstein has served this state well, and lately there’s been some notable pushback from old Sacramento (the capitol) and San Francisco hands about this notion (addressed elsewhere in this thread) of forcing her retirement. George Skelton asked this: “There are 7 octogenarian Senators. Only 1 is a woman. She is the only one being told to retire before her term ends. Why is that?” I’m paraphrasing, of course. Skelton ran through her career, both the long-ago and the recent, and while he found things to disagree with, he didn’t find deficiencies.

The people of California will be addressing all of this — age, race, gender, political party — in our next election cycle. The Governor got a chance to make a one-man choice, though he consulted with many people. Unless Feinstein actually dies (gods forbid) the next choice should be up to all the voters in California. We have some great potential candidates. Yay, us.

In the meantime, how about all those other states? Who’s up next?