Dianne Feinstein, the nation’s longest-serving woman senator and the state of California’s longest-serving senator, has died at age 90.
Feinstein served in public office for over 50 years. Before ascending to the Senate, she was San Francisco’s first woman mayor and first woman president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. A White House press statement from earlier this year noted that Feinstein was elected to the Senate in 1992, deemed the “Year of the Woman” in part due to her election.
Her legislative legacy was defined by her commitment to gun control legislation and her centrist approach to working across the aisle, occasionally raising the furor of her party members (and causing clashes with young progressives). Feinstein's first mayoral appointment was incited by gun violence: She took office in 1978, following the assassination of then-mayor George Moscone and Harvey Milk, then on the city's Board of Supervisors.
As mayor of San Francisco, she was praised for putting more funding toward addressing the AIDS epidemic in the city than the entire federal government at the time.
In 1994, as a senator, Feinstein authored and helped pass a federal assault weapons ban; after its expiration in 2004, she continued lobbying for stricter gun control. As chairperson of the Senate Intelligence Committee (the first woman appointed, in 2009, to the post), she oversaw a five-year investigation into the CIA’s torture practices under the Bush administration, and pushed for the report to be declassified. “It’s my very strong belief that one day this report should be declassified," she said. "This must be a lesson learned: that torture doesn’t work.”
Alternatively, Feinstein could be “hawkish,” as the Associated Press noted. She supported President Obama’s wide-ranging collection of American phone and web data.
Feinstein’s final years were dogged by scrutiny of her ability to serve in office as not only the Senate’s eldest member, but also with increasing headlines about her failing health. In February, shortly before she was hospitalized for shingles, Feinstein announced her intention to retire at the end of her current term, January 2025. She was then absent from the Senate for about three months, related to her shingles hospitalization, which heightened concerns around her fitness to serve.
In recent weeks, reporters had zeroed in on a Feinstein family dispute, suggesting that Feinstein was largely removed from the day-to-day goings-on, echoing reports on her current approach to office. Such reporting had led to calls for Feinstein to step down from office, which she refused to do.
California governor Gavin Newson announced a few weeks ago that he would appoint an interim replacement to Feinstein’s seat if it became vacant early, though it would not be either of the three high-profile Democrats already campaigning for her seat (Reps. Barbara Lee, Katie Porter, and Adam Schiff).
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