Senator Dianne Feinstein Dies
U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, a centrist Democrat who was elected to the Senate in 1992 in the "Year of the Woman" and broke down gender barriers throughout her long career in local and national politics, has died. Senator Dianne Feinstein has died at the age of 90.
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| Feinstein and Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, hold a news conference in the Capitol on Wednesday, October 4, 2017. (Photo: Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc./Getty Images) |
Feinstein, the oldest U.S. senator to take office, is a supporter of liberal priorities important to his country, including environmental protection, reproductive rights, and gun control, but is also known as a pragmatic lawmaker who reaches out to Republicans and seeks a middle ground.
Feinstein becomes San Francisco's first female mayor
She was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1969 and became the Council's first female president (chair) in 1978, the same year that Mayor George Moscone was gunned down along with Councilman Harvey Milk at City Hall by disgruntled former Councilman Dan White. Feinstein finds Milk's lifeless body.
After Moscone's death, Feinstein became San Francisco's first female mayor. In the Senate, she is one of the first two female senators from California, the first woman to head the Senate Intelligence Committee, and the first woman to serve as the highest-ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee.
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His penchant for working bipartisanly helped him achieve legislative victories throughout his career. But it also proved a burden in his final years in Congress, as his states became more liberal while the Senate and voters became increasingly polarized.
An accomplished debater who is not easy to match, the senator from California has long been known for his fitting and memorable verbal utterances and incisive responses when he debates the issues he is most interested in. But he lost that prowess in his final years in the Senate, sometimes appearing confused when questioned about his signature issue. He resigned from his leadership post on the Judiciary panel just before his party recaptured the Senate majority in 2021.
Feinstein graduated from Stanford University in 1955, with a bachelor's degree in history. She married young and then divorced and became a single mother to her daughter, Katherine, in 1960, when such status was still uncommon.
Feinstein's second husband, Bert Feinstein, was 19 years her senior, but he described the marriage as worth a "10" (perfect) and he retained his name even after his death from cancer in 1978. In 1980, Feinstein married investment banker Richard Blum, and thanks to his fortune, she was one of the richest members of the Senate. Blum died in February 2022.