Posted on 09/29/2023 6:07:41 AM PDT by Red Badger
KEY POINTS
* Dianne Feinstein, the oldest member of the U.S. Senate and the longest-serving senator from California, has died at age 90.
* Feinstein’s death leaves vacant her powerful Senate seat, requiring Gov. Gavin Newsom to appoint a temporary successor.
* The Democratic senator’s decades-long career was studded with major legislative achievements on issues including gun control and the environment.
* Ranking member Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) attends a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing examining issues facing prisons and jails during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic on Capitol Hill June 2, 2020 in Washington, D.C.
Dianne Feinstein, the oldest member of the U.S. Senate and the longest-serving senator from California, has died at age 90, two sources familiar with the matter told NBC News on Friday.
The Democrat’s passing marks the end of a boundary-pushing political career that spanned more than half a century, studded with major legislative achievements on issues including gun control and the environment.
Feinstein had planned to retire at the end of her current term in 2024.
Feinstein’s death leaves vacant her powerful Senate seat, requiring Gov. Gavin Newsom to appoint a temporary successor.
A San Francisco native, Feinstein cleared a path for women in politics as she rose the ranks of leadership. After two failed bids for mayor, she was elected president of San Francisco’s board of supervisors in 1978, becoming the first woman to hold the title.
Feinstein was made acting mayor of the city later that year, after then-Mayor George Moscone and Harvey Milk, her colleague on the board of supervisors, were assassinated by Dan White, a former member of the same board.
In later interviews, Feinstein recalled finding Milk’s body and searching for a pulse by putting her finger in a bullet hole.
Feinstein was the first to announce the murders to the press. She was appointed mayor a week later, again becoming the first woman elevated to the office.
The tragedy had the side effect of jumpstarting Feinstein’s political career, but the trauma of the day stuck with her even decades later.
“I never really talk about this,” Feinstein said with a sigh when asked about the murders in a CNN interview in 2017.
Her streak of firsts continued at the national level. Feinstein lost a gubernatorial bid in 1990, but two years later won a special election to the U.S. Senate, becoming California’s first female senator.
Weeks later, the state’s second female senator, Barbara Boxer, was sworn into office, making California the first state in the U.S. to be represented in the Senate by two women.
Their 1992 elections helped define the “Year of the Woman,” in which four Democratic women were newly elected to the Senate — more than doubling the chamber’s female representation.
In the Senate, Feinstein clinched some of her biggest legislative achievements. She wrote and championed the 1994 assault weapons ban, both a landmark bill and a continuation of a career-long effort to enact stricter gun controls.
The legislation passed Congress and was signed by then-President Bill Clinton, albeit with major compromises including a 10-year sunset provision. The ban expired in 2004 during the administration of George W. Bush.
She also sponsored bills that protect millions of acres of California’s desert, worked to create a nationwide AMBER alert network, helped reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act and fought for the release of a lengthy report detailing the CIA’s torture practices, among other accomplishments.
Over her three decades in the Senate, Feinstein has generally been seen as a political moderate in her party. In the 1990s and 2000s, that reputation made Feinstein highly popular — but much of that popularity eroded in the proceeding years as California’s political tint shifted toward deeper shades of blue.
As her centrism grew increasingly out of fashion, Feinstein’s standing in her final stretch in office was further diminished by a crescendo of skepticism about her mental fitness for the Senate.
A damning report from the San Francisco Chronicle in April 2022 featured unnamed Democratic colleagues of Feinstein fretting over her apparent decline in mental acuity. Feinstein defended her ability to govern, while acknowledging that she had been going through an “extremely painful and distracting” period as her late husband, financier Richard Blum, had battled cancer.
By the time Feinstein announced that she would not seek reelection at the end of her term in 2024, multiple Democratic politicians had already launched campaigns to succeed her.
I can imagine St. Peter at the Golden Gate telling her where she, a godless leftist, now goes.
...so will Newsome pull a rod Blagojevich? Senate seat for sale?
Biden can pick his nose for all I care. Just because Joey “wants” someone as VP, Congress and Senate still need to vote on it.
Unless Voter Fraud also works in the Congress and Senate, Joey’s pick isn’t guaranteed.
Sadly, RINOs and GOPe will F*ck this up if given a chance.
I'm not that benevolent.
She’s been walking dead for a long time. Should have retired years ago.
So, how does the affect the senate votes until her replacement is installed?
Article: “major legislative achievements on issues including gun control and the environment”
In other words she was an enemy of the people.
RIP. Newsome should appoint himself.
Congratulations Diane!!!! You made it! You died in office!
Now you join Ted Kennedy, Juan McCain, and many other Senators that think it matters that they die in office.
BTW, you will quickly be forgotten. Your name will fade. BUT you died a Senator!
Bye.
desperately clinged to power long after she was no longer fit for office
WOW!!!
“I’ve never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure,”
As of 29 Sep 2023, the US Senate is currently split with 50 Republicans and 50 senators who caucus with Democrats..................
Yep.
Congratulations Diane!!!! You made it! You died in office!
Now you join Ted Kennedy, Juan McCain, and many other Senators that think it matters that they die in office.
BTW, you will quickly be forgotten. Your name will fade. BUT you died a Senator!
Bye.
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