A Celebration of a Lifetime with a Great Friend: Her Legacy to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and the Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass

The Senate and the House halted proceedings as they paid tribute to Feinstein, who died on Friday. She was 90.

As a vase of white roses rested at Feinstein’s seat, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer ticked off a list of Feinstein’s legislative accomplishments: the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban, reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act, her advocacy on marriage equality and climate justice.

“When you asked her how is she voting on something, [she would say] ‘Let me study this issue before taking a position,’” Schumer said. She voted for it even though she believed the cause of the vote was right, and she was able to get it done.

“I know many of us had the opportunity to deal with her, and certainly all of us, on both sides of the aisle, respected her,” he said as he called for a moment of silence.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a Republican from California, recalled working with Feinstein on water legislation in the midst of the state’s record-breaking drought in the mid-2010s. I remember working long hours to try to work through the challenges. He said we put our state first even though we have different beliefs.

Feinstein spent more than three decades in the Senate. She was the longest-serving woman senator in history, and the first woman to serve on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

President Biden paid tribute to Feinstein, his former colleague in the Senate, at an event at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall.

“She was a historic figure, a trailblazer for women, and a great friend. Dianne made her mark on everything from national security to the environment, to gun safety, to protecting civil liberties. He said the country will miss her a lot.

The election of Donald Trump in 2016 put Feinstein’s brand of bipartisanship out of step within her own party. When Feinstein sought another six-year term in the fall of 2018, Democrats were angry and dismayed, even though they had hoped for a new generation of candidates. News reports said there was apparently a memory lapse.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and women in elected office all across America will always stand on the shoulders of Senator Feinstein.

Feinstein, who served as mayor of San Francisco and California, has been thanked by the governor for her service.

She never lost faith in the spirit of political cooperation after breaking down barriers and glass ceilings. And she was a fighter — for the city, the state and the country she loved,” Newsom said.

Feinstein’s rise in politics began on Nov. 27, 1978, when her city was jolted by two political assassinations at City Hall. As president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, she announced the news to a shocked press corps.

“As President of the Board of Supervisors, it is my duty to announce that both Mayor [George] Moscone and Supervisor [Harvey] Milk have been shot and killed,” Feinstein said in a firm but clearly stunned voice.

Willie Brown, a long-time ally of hers, said that Feinstein’s handling of the assassinations crisis solidified her reputation.

Mayor Feinstein signed a local gun control law in anger at the white panthers, who supported the assassinations. The recall of Feinstein was put on the November ballot in 1983, after the White Panther groups collaborated with other groups that were unhappy with the mayor’s policies. Feinstein was elected to another term in later that year because of the failed recall.

As mayor, Feinstein governed from the center – winning support from business groups, law enforcement unions and the city’s more conservative voters. San Francisco’s more liberal activists found her moderate governing style offensive. Legislation that would have given same sex couples the right to form domestic partnerships was vetoed by her in 1982. She wouldn’t sign legislation guaranteeing equal pay for women and men who work the same jobs.

San Francisco hosted the Democratic National Convention in 1984. Feinstein landed on the cover of Time magazine and made the short list to be presidential nominee Walter Mondale’s running mate.

By then the AIDS epidemic was ravaging her city. The federal government under President Ronald Reagan mostly ignored it. A young physician at San Francisco General Hospital, Paul Volberding often briefed Mayor Feinstein on what was needed to fight the disease.

“I don’t recall any moment in the early epidemic when I was told, ‘No, we can’t do that because we don’t have the resources,’ ” recalled Volberding, who became one of the pioneers in AIDS treatment.

Dianne Feinstein, long serving female senator in the Senate, died at 90: A comprehensive report on torture by the CIA after the Sept. 11 attacks

When law professor Anita Hill accused Thomas of sexual misconduct when they worked together, members of the Judiciary Committee, including Democratic Sen. Howell Heflin of Alabama, questioned Hill’s integrity and motivation.

Feinstein said that many people took a look at the Judiciary Committee and felt it had bungled the job. She wanted to put a woman’s right to an abortion into federal law.

In Washington, she advocated gun control, overcoming stiff odds to pass a federal ban on assault weapons in 1994. She almost lost her job later that year. She was known as a workhorse because she did her homework and was not afraid to rock the boat.

In 2014, over objections from the Obama administration, she took to the Senate floor to release a comprehensive report on torture by the CIA following the Sept. 11 attacks.

The CIA mistreated prisoners, including waterboarding and sleep deprivation, in a 500-page summary report chaired by Feinstein.

Tom Blanton, who heads the National Security Archive at George Washington University, believes that the investigation directed by Feinstein made the intelligence community accountable.

Feinstein missed 97 votes in the fifth year of her last term due to a shingles problem.

She appeared frail when she returned to Washington after three months, with the side effects of shingles still preventing her from working.

She could not see what else to do on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. Lazarus said she felt strong enough to serve.

Source: Dianne Feinstein, longest serving woman in the Senate, has died at 90

Malia Cohen, Roberta Feinstein, and the Newsom State Sen. J. Michael Newsom: A Black Woman Candidate for the State Senate

But Malia Cohen, who served on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors before being elected to the state Board of Equalization, remembers meeting Feinstein at City Hall on a third grade field trip where Feinstein told her class one of them could be mayor one day.

Feinstein’s third husband Richard Blum died in 2022. She is survived by her daughter, who was a judge on the superior court in San Francisco.

Earlier this month, Gov. Newsom reiterated on NBC his pledge to appoint a Black woman to fill the Senate seat if a vacancy occurred. Newsom said that he would only appoint someone until voters could decide next year, meaning that no one currently running for the seat would be appointed. House Democratic Reps. Barbara Lee, Katie Porter and Adam Schiff are declared candidates. Lee is a Black woman and she has rejected suggestions that she would serve as a baby stepmom.