US Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, a centrist Democrat and champion of liberal causes who was elected to the Senate in 1992 and broke gender barriers throughout her long career in local and national politics, has died. She was 90.
Feinstein died on Thursday night at her home in Washington her office said on Friday. Tributes poured in all day. Opening the US Senate floor, US Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced that “we lost a giant in the Senate.”
“As the nation mourns this tremendous loss, we know how many lives she impacted and how many glass ceilings she shattered along the way,” Schumer said, his voice cracking.
Photo: San Francisco Chronicle via AP
US President Joe Biden, who served with Feinstein for years in the Senate, called her “a pioneering American,” a “true trailblazer” and a “cherished friend.”
California Governor Gavin Newsom is to appoint a temporary replacement.
Feinstein, the oldest sitting US senator, was a passionate advocate for liberal priorities important to her state, including environmental protection, reproductive rights and gun control, but was also known as a pragmatic lawmaker who reached out to Republicans and sought middle ground.
Her death came after a bout of shingles sidelined her for more than two months earlier this year — an absence that drew frustration from her most liberal critics and launched an unsuccessful attempt by Democrats to temporarily replace her on the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. When she returned to the Senate in May, she was frail and using a wheelchair, voting only occasionally.
On Friday, her Senate desk was draped in black and topped with a vase of white roses. Senators gave tearful tributes as members of the California House delegation stood in the back of the chamber and former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi sat in the gallery with Feinstein’s daughter, Katherine.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell was one of several Republicans who gave tributes to the Democratic icon, calling her his friend.
“Her beloved home state of California and our entire nation are better for her dogged advocacy and diligent service,” McConnell said.
“Dianne made her mark on everything from national security to the environment to protecting civil liberties,” Biden said in a statement. “Our country will benefit from her legacy for generations.”
Feinstein was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1969 and became its first female board president in 1978, the year then-San Francisco mayor George Moscone was gunned down alongside Supervisor Harvey Milk at the city hall by Dan White, a disgruntled former supervisor. Feinstein found Milk’s body.
After Moscone’s death, Feinstein became San Francisco’s first female mayor. In the Senate, she was one of California’s first two female senators, the first woman to head the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the first woman to serve as the Judiciary Committee’s top Democrat.
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