WASHINGTON (AP) — California Sen. Dianne Feinstein returned to the Senate on Wednesday after a two-and-a-half-month absence due to illness, giving majority Democrats a much-needed final vote as they seek to confirm President Joe Biden’s nominees and raise the nation’s debt ceiling in the coming weeks.
Looking noticeably thinner and frail, Feinstein is using a wheelchair to get around the Capitol as she continues to recover from a case of shingles. She missed the Senate’s first votes on Wednesday morning but arrived outside the Senate in a car for an afternoon vote, helped into the wheelchair by aides and greeted by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer with a handshake and affectionate pat on the back.
In a statement, Feinstein, 89, said she was continuing to recover from side effects of the shingles virus and would work a reduced schedule. While she had returned to Washington on Tuesday, she missed a vote on Tuesday evening and two votes on Wednesday morning before returning for the afternoon vote to confirm a Department of Education nominee.
“My doctors have advised me to work a lighter schedule as I return to the Senate,” Feinstein said in the statement. “I’m hopeful those issues will subside as I continue to recover.”
Feinstein’s return after 10 weeks away from the Senate gives Democrats a better cushion as they navigate their narrow 51-49 majority. She had asked Schumer to temporarily replace her on the Senate Judiciary Committee, where some of Biden’s judicial nominations have stalled without her tie-breaking vote. But Republicans blocked that request last month, giving Democrats few options to move those nominees – and important bills, like a potential debt package – unless she returned or resigned.