DIANNE FEINSTEIN, THE ‘TITAN’ OF THE SENATE
California Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s announcement Tuesday that she would not seek re-election in 2024 came as no surprise after the 89-year-old Democrat’s cognitive decline. But this late-career development should in no way diminish Feinstein’s significance, which deserves to be recognized and celebrated by Californians and by all Americans.
Feinstein was born in San Francisco in 1933, the year construction began on the Golden Gate Bridge, and she began pursuing a career in civic engagement after graduating from Stanford University in 1955. She was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1969, and she became a national figure in the grimmest of circumstances after San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk were assassinated by former Supervisor Dan White in 1978. She has said she could still smell the gunpowder when she found Milk and put her finger through a bullet hole trying to get a pulse in his office. Feinstein became acting mayor after that day, then served as mayor until 1988 — the city’s first female leader, foreshadowing a career in which she would go on to break many barriers in politics.
Elected to the U.S. Senate in 1992 — another breakthrough for women in California — Feinstein got off to an exceptionally fast start. Her experiences at San Francisco City Hall in 1978 helped drive what became her relentless, career-long pursuit of legislation to reduce gun violence. In 1994, she won approval of the so-called Federal Assault Weapons Ban. It prohibited the manufacturing for civilian use of some semi-automatic firearms as well as some large-capacity ammunition magazines. In a compromise needed to enact the law and a show of the centrism she so valued but that ultimately found her out of step with modern Democrats, Feinstein agreed to let it sunset in 2004. By any measure, its passage remains a staggering achievement.
It was one of many for her, especially on environmental issues. As a first-term senator, Feinstein played the central role in creating the Death Valley and Joshua Tree national parks. She went on to pass landmark laws protecting California’s historic old-growth redwoods and fragile Lake Tahoe.
Feinstein shaped the nation militarily — and morally — as well. In 2001, she joined the Senate intelligence committee, and quickly became one of its most influential members. She stood in the way of Vice President Dick Cheney and others in the administration of President George W. Bush who were eager to abandon U.S. norms in the war on terrorism in the post-9/11 era. As committee chair in 2014, she won the release of a 500-page summary of a previously classified report documenting how the CIA resisted basic oversight — and destroyed crucial evidence — as it implemented policies that crossed the line into torture. The report forced the CIA to make the astounding admission that it had surreptitiously hacked into the committee’s computers to find out what Feinstein and other senators had learned. A memorable 2019 film in which she was played by Annette Bening depicted her resolve.
As her career unfolded, she often worked with conservative Republican senators on legislation, in particular human trafficking. Her civil, collegial approach came to seem out of sync with a new era of performative progressive politics, leading the San Francisco school board to consider changing the name of an elementary school named after her. Surrounded by dedicated staffers, she has kept working and now says she’ll stay in office through 2024.
As former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says, Feinstein is a “titan” in Senate history. It’s how she’ll ultimately — and deservedly — be remembered.