Adam Schiff’s vote for the Iraq war should disqualify him from the U.S. Senate

Pasadena-area Congressman Adam Schiff is reportedly planning a run for the United States Senate, according to Politico.

Californians ought to have at least filter on any potential Senate candidates: if a politician voted for the war in Iraq, they shouldn’t be rewarded with higher office.

Schiff, who voted to authorize George W. Bush’s war in Iraq, fails that standard.

That war, to remind everyone, has resulted in the direct war deaths of 275,000 to 306,000 people, including up to 208,000 civilians, according to Brown University’s Costs of War Project. Many more died due to the indirect consequences of war. It also resulted in the displacement of nearly 10 million people and the squandering of trillions of American taxpayer dollars.

Now, Schiff’s defenders will say that was a long time ago. An indiscretion. We all make mistakes, like voting to kill hundreds of thousands of people and waste trillions of dollars over lies, I suppose.

Well, I don’t care if it was five years ago or 20 years ago. A vote for the Iraq war is a disqualifying stain on the record of every lawmaker who didn’t have the wisdom of California Reps. Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Lee, Maxine Waters and Hilda Solis to oppose the war.

Throughout his time in Congress, Schiff  also supported botched interventions in Libya and Syria, and has been the beneficiary of defense contractor contributions. This includes a 2013, $2,500-per-ticket fundraising concert featuring Beyonce hosted by the Raytheon PAC on his behalf.

Schiff can stick to being a friend of the military-industrial complex in the House, fine, but he shouldn’t be representing  California in the U.S. Senate with that much blood on his hands. Feinstein should be the last senator from California who voted for that war.

Rather than ponder a Senate run, I think Schiff should be taking a vow of silence at some undisclosed Buddhist monastery until the end of his days as penance for all the lives he destroyed. But that’s just me.

Here’s a better to succeed Feinstein should she step down: California Secretary of State Shirley Weber.

Dr. Weber, professor emerita of Africana studies at San Diego State University, never once voted for the Iraq war, for starters.

She served admirably in the California Legislature, leading important reform efforts on police use-of-force and even bucked her own party in favor of trying to reform public school teacher tenure.

The latter effort called for aligning California’s tenure with the rest of the country, raising the minimum threshold for lifetime tenure from 18 months (hardly enough time to determine the competence of a teacher) to three years.

“Research supports a longer probationary period as teachers on an upward trajectory will show notable growth in years two through five, with associated gains in student outcomes,” she said at the time.

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The effort, which was ultimately gutted by Democratic Assemblymembers and union tools Lorena Gonzalez and Patrick O’Donnell, brought her into conflict with the state’s teachers unions, which requires courage few in California politics have.

As California secretary of state, Weber has proven herself to be a thoughtful and hands-on leader bringing the office up to where it should be. Her life story as the daughter of a Black sharecropper who had to flee Arkansas for California after conflicts with a White farmer also gives her an invaluable perspective. Certainly more valuable than the life story of some lawyer who voted to kill hundreds of thousands of people in the biggest foreign policy blunder since the Vietnam War.

While Schiff gets undeserved credit for standing against Trump, literally the easiest thing to do as a Democrat, Weber has actually taken bold stands when it was unpopular to do so.

Californians can definitely do better than Schiff. Weber, who is actually thoughtful and interesting, would be my preference.

Sal Rodriguez can be reached at salrodriguez@scng.com