Dianne Feinstein, California’s longest-serving U.S. senator who led San Francisco through its darkest and most violent days as mayor in the 1970s and later authored a federal ban on assault weapons that lasted a decade, died Thursday night, according to multiple reports.
At 90, she was the oldest member of Congress and the longest-serving female in the chamber’s history. During a lingering bout of shingles earlier this year and ongoing reports of her mental decline, she resisted pressure from her own party to resign her seat.
Her death will force Gov. Gavin Newsom to make a crucial decision he said recently he hoped he wouldn’t have to do: appoint a replacement to serve the rest of Feinstein’s term with the hotly contested race to succeed her in full swing.
At the start of her career, Feinstein was a trailblazer for women and gay rights, and after the 1978 assassinations of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, she emerged as a reassuring leader and formidable force who pulled together the city that was still reeling from the Jonestown Massacre in Guyana 10 days earlier, where 900 people connected to the San Francisco-based People’s Temple died.
Dianne Feinstein was many things — a powerful, trailblazing U.S. Senator; an early voice for gun control; a leader in times of tragedy and chaos. But to me, she was a dear friend, a lifelong mentor, and a role model not only for me, but to my wife and daughters for what a…
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) September 29, 2023
In what would become known as “The Year of the Woman” in 1992, she shared a historic moment with Barbara Boxer when they were both elected to the U.S. Senate and California became the first state with two women senators. Feinstein won in a special election and was sworn in first.
“She had tenacity. She never gave up,” especially in passing the Assault Weapons Ban in 1994, Boxer said in an interview with the Bay Area News Group. “I will always…
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