April 28, 2023

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Then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) speaks during her weekly news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington in March 2022. (Jacquelyn Martin / Associated Press)

By Ryan Fonseca Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It’s Friday, April 28. Age may be nothing but a number, but among U.S. political leaders, that number tends to be in the 80s. President Biden is the oldest commander-in-chief in history at 80 (and is running again). Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is 81. But let’s look closer to home. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, 83, only gave up her leadership post last year. Then there is the much-discussed Sen. Dianne Feinstein, 89. Feinstein, the oldest sitting U.S. senator, has been notably absent from the Capitol as she recovers from shingles. She announced last month that she won’t seek reelection in 2024, opening up a field of younger contenders, like the 62-year-old Rep. Adam B. Schiff. Feinstein’s and Pelosi’s decades in politics affected generations of Americans. But now, with the 2024 election on the horizon and political dividing lines seemingly deeper than the Mariana Trench, California politicians who weren’t alive during World War II may finally have a shot at powerful leadership perches in Washington. That “generational changing of the guard,” as The Times Sacramento Bureau Chief Laurel Rosenhall wrote this week, is slated to bring a “political change that could endure for decades.” (Sign up for Laurel’s weekly newsletter here.) That shift could also include the U.S. House of Representatives, should Pelosi decide not to seek reelection. Some younger Democrats have signaled a play for her seat. One is state Sen. Scott Wiener, 52, who formed an exploratory committee last month to raise money for a congressional run, should Pelosi decide to step down. “Wiener is most comfortable seeking out the path of most resistance,” Times reporter Melanie Mason wrote this week. “His 13-year career in elected office can be viewed as a one-man experiment: How far can a politician go when he pushes all the boundaries at once?” Should Pelosi leave the arena and Wiener run and win, he’d be the first openly gay person to represent San Francisco in Congress. And while he’s considered one of the left-most members in Sacramento, Melanie writes, he’s a moderate “by San Francisco standards,” adding: “His alliances with Big Tech and real estate interests make him suspect among economic progressives, who accuse him of backing “trickle-down housing” and other policies that have perpetuated the city’s stark divide between the rich and poor.” With the median age of Californians at about 37 — slightly below the national median of 38 — does it matter if our elected leaders are pushing 90? According to a 2022 CBS News poll, most Americans say yes. The poll found a majority of Americans across political and age divides support maximum age limits for elected officials. When their current terms end, Feinstein and Pelosi will have served 33 years and 37 years in the U.S. Congress, respectively. And given the lack of term limits at the Capitol, their successors could also hold those California seats for decades to come.