Adam Schiff discusses his plans as California’s next senator

Adam Schiff — “sleazebag,” “low life,” “little pencil neck,” to use some of the pungent ways Donald Trump describes him — is taking the high road, turning the other cheek and generally being the better man by ignoring all that and promising to do whatever he can to work and thrive in a MAGA-fied Washington, D.C.

Yes, California’s newly elected Democratic senator requires bulked-up security to get through life, thanks to the animosity and violent threats stirred up by the vengeful president-elect.

No, his views of Trump and his rhetoric — “the hate and the division and the bile,” as Schiff described it — haven’t changed.

Still, he insisted, he would “focus on getting done what my constituents elected me to do, which is try to bring down the cost of living. In particular, bring down the cost of housing and child care, build lots more housing, address homelessness, address rising food prices and just the struggle that working families and middle-class families are facing.”

“They’re the same issues, in part, that Republicans campaigned on and Trump campaigned on,” Schiff said in his first interview since voters on Tuesday gave him a six-year lease on the seat once held by the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein. “Where they’re serious … they’ll find a willing ally.”

Asked about Trump’s threats to take aim at California, arguably the beating heart of anti-Trump resistance, Schiff vowed “to defend our state and our democracy and stand up to any efforts to punish California or withhold resources from California, or to diminish people’s rights and freedom.”

“But,” he said, “I’m going to begin with a hopeful expectation that there are broad areas where we can work together and move the state and the country forward.”

There’s a history of futility among California House members who tried to make a move from the lower chamber into the U.S. Senate. The state was simply too large and disparate — physically, psychically — for a lawmaker representing a tiny slice of the landscape to make the leap to statewide success.

That changed in recent years, with the advent of social media and, especially, cable TV and its political chat shows, which turned Schiff into a household name, not just in California but nationally.

It was, of course, his role as a leading prosecutor and Trump antagonist that made Schiff a hero among Democrats and led to his formal censure by the House — a political gift as he ramped up his Senate bid in a crowded Democrat field. The only thing lacking was shiny wrapping paper and a bright red bow.

Schiff had reason to smile after being formally censured by House Republicans, a move that gave a big boost to his U.S. Senate campaign.

(Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)

Schiff made no mention of Trump in his Tuesday night victory speech. (He did thank former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was extremely helpful pushing Schiff past fellow Democrats in the top-two primary, leaving him only to face the hapless Republican Steve Garvey in November.) During our conversation, Schiff spoke of the president-elect only when asked.

Some have speculated Trump might use his second term as president to help mend the deep divisions he’s created over the last tempestuous decade. In this rosy way of thinking, Trump won’t ever stand for election again and has a legacy to consider — a fanciful notion that is plainly a triumph of hope over experience. Recollect the many anticipated “presidential pivots” that failed to materialize during Trump’s first time in office.

Schiff, however, gave a rhetorical shrug.

“I don’t think we really know,” he said. Trump “doesn’t have much ideology, except self, so probably it depends on what he thinks is in his self-interest.”

Since there’s no controlling what Trump does, Schiff went on, “my focus is on what I can do, and what I can do is seek out people on the other side of the aisle. Try to work the way Dianne Feinstein did. Develop relationships with people. Get to know the Central Valley and the far north and the far south of the state. Represent them well. Represent them aggressively.”

Schiff, freshly returned from California, spoke via Zoom from his home office in the Washington suburbs. Behind him, flanking a rolltop desk, were framed pictures of two sets of brothers: John F. and Robert F. Kennedy, and Schiff and his elder sibling, Dan.

He said Trump’s victory, while obviously disappointing, wasn’t shocking. It came down to deep-seated economy anxieties, he said, and a sense that Trump and Republicans offered voters a better solution than Democrats managed in the last four years.

“You probably heard me talk many times on the campaign trail about how the problem today is not that people [aren’t] working. Unemployment is very low. The problem is that they are working and they still are struggling to get by,” Schiff said. “This has been a problem decades in the making. I think it has certainly been aggravated by the pandemic, and you’re seeing a global recoiling against the status quo and incumbents everywhere.

“I think it’s a frustration that, notwithstanding all the promises that are made, people’s lives are still increasingly difficult and challenging.”

Democrats’ task in the next several years, he said, will be to find better ways to speak to and remedy those gnawing concerns.

Asked what his top priorities would be as senator, Schiff offered these:

“Housing, I think, is at the very top of my list. We need to build a lot more housing in California if we’re ever going to make it affordable for people to pay the rent and buy their first home. And if we’re going to solve the homelessness problem, we’re going to have to be building a lot more housing.”

Next, Schiff said, “I also want to expand and make more accessible child care, and we’ll be prioritizing the child tax credit as well as financial assistance for people who pursue a career in child care, creating incentives for employers and for the federal government to build child-care facilities in the workplaces.”

He also mentioned “attacking food prices by going after some of these anti-competitive mergers … attacking climate change by continuing our investment in renewable energy, and also really diving into the water issue. No pun intended.”

Much of which is far easier said than done with Republicans controlling the White House and, quite possibly, both chambers of Congress.

But Schiff said he’s not unaccustomed to working from a defensive crouch. Serving in Sacramento, in the state Senate, he said he “had a lot of my bills signed” into law by Republican Gov. Pete Wilson. “Had a lot of my bills signed by [Republican President] George W. Bush and advance in Republican Congresses as well,” said Schiff, who has served in the House since 2001.

Considering a 2030 reelection bid — that was your friendly columnist’s idea, not something Schiff is already contemplating — the soon-to be senator was asked what he thought a successful pitch would sound like six years from now.

“He really delivered for the state,” Schiff replied. “Every part of the state. He got things done, found ways to work together in the minority and majority and delivered.

“And,” Schiff added, “when the country needed, he was there to protect our democracy, our rights and freedoms.”