Dianne Feinstein won’t seek re-election, will retire after more than 30 years in the U.S. Senate
Dianne Feinstein’s departure from the Senate will end the saga of one of the most consequential Californians of the last 50 years.
“You can’t tell the story of California politics — or the story of American politics — without the trailblazing career of Dianne Feinstein,” California junior Sen. Alex Padilla said Tuesday after Feinstein announced she would not seek re-election next year.
The San Francisco Democrat’s announcement is the final stop of a political journey that saw the Feinstein methodically achieve fame and clout.
She became the city’s acting mayor in the chaotic days of 1978 after Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated. She was a serious contender for the Democratic vice presidential nomination in 1984.
As a senator, she led arguably the most successful gun control fight of this generation when a 10-year-long assault weapons ban took effect in 1994. She chaired the Senate Intelligence Committee as it investigated, and criticized, the CIA’s interrogation tactics as it hunted and caught suspected terrorists.
Feinstein’s influence was also more subtle, more in line with the style of a traditionally powerful senator. She was first elected to the Senate in 1992, a time when compromise was a matter of pride, when veterans such as Sens. Joe Biden and Ted Kennedy worked behind the scenes with members of both parties to get things done.
Feinstein reveled in the role as a careful legislative player. Now the longest serving woman in Senate history, she’s a member of the appropriations committee, where key spending decisions are made and she helped secure billions of dollars for California. On the judiciary committee, as one of the first women to ever serve on that panel, she brought a more human touch to the legalese-tinged questioning that for years dominated the male-only committee.
Feinstein turns 90 on June 22, and her retirement announcement Tuesday was no surprise. In recent years, she has been discouraged, or stepped away from, taking leading roles.
Her 2024 campaign committee reported only $9,968.56 on hand. Two prominent challengers, Reps. Adam Schiff, D-Los Angeles, and Katie Porter, D-Orange County, had already announced they were running, and Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, is expected to join them.
A career of firsts
The decision not to run next year for a sixth full term will end a political saga that began in 1969 when Feinstein was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.
She was the first woman to be mayor of San Francisco, the first woman from California to serve in the Senate, the first woman to chair the Senate Intelligence Committee and the Senate Rules Committee, and the first to be the Senate Judiciary Committee’s top Democrat.
She vaulted into the national spotlight in 1978 after the Moscone and Milk assassinations, and would go on to win two terms as mayor.
“In a moment of horror and heartbreak, she offered our city poised, courageous and hopeful leadership,” said former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, Tuesday.
Feinstein’s steely stewardship of the shocked city put her into the national political conversation at a time when prominent women were becoming important political players. She became a serious contender for the 1984 Democratic vice presidential nomination that eventually went to New York Rep. Geraldine Ferraro.
Eight years later, Californians elected her to the U.S. Senate, where she has served since 1992, topping the record of Sen. Hiram Johnson, a Progressive Republican who served from 1917 to 1945.
Feinstein’s decision not to run has been long expected. She had stepped away from top leadership positions in recent years and exhibited some memory problems. She was in line to chair the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2021, but didn’t after many of her colleagues urged her not to do so.
Last year, she was in line to become Senate president pro tempore, which would have put her third in line for the presidency. Feinstein expressed no interest and the job went to Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.
The Legacy
As a senator, Feinstein quickly became well-known for her gun control advocacy. With a Democrat in the White House and controlling both chambers of Congress, President Bill Clinton in 1993 and 1994 was eager to win approval of strong gun control legislation.
The nation had been rocked by several incidents, including the massacre at Stockton’s Cleveland Elementary School in 1989 where a gunman killed five people and wounded 34.
Feinstein would author the assault weapons ban, which stayed in effect for 10 years. Efforts to revive it have been unsuccessful.
Feinstein led the highly secret Senate intelligence panel from 2009 to 2015, when serious questions were being raised about American activity during the Iraq War and against terrorist threats.
The committee’s report on the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation techniques” was a 6,700 page explanation – with 38,000 footnotes – of why the tactics were not useful.
Among its findings were that the CIA “provided extensive inaccurate information about the operation of the program and its effectiveness to policymakers and the public.” It called the program’s management “inadequate and deeply flawed.”
It found the program was “far more brutal” than the CIA had told the public and lawmakers.
The report led the Senate to vote overwhelmingly to ban “enhanced interrogation techniques.”
Politics
Feinstein has been criticized by many liberals for being too centrist and too cautious.
When Kennedy mobilized party liberals and challenged President Jimmy Carter for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1980, Feinstein backed Carter.
She was an early Biden supporter when he ran for president in 2020.
At the time, California Senate colleague Kamala Harris was considering a bid, but Feinstein explained “I’m a big fan of Sen. Harris, and I work with her. But she’s brand-new here, so it takes a little bit of time to get to know somebody.”
Harris became a senator in January 2017, briefly ran for president and was picked by Biden as his vice president.
Feinstein was seen as more moderate in the first years she was seeking her Senate seat, a time when the state was electing Republican Pete Wilson as governor and, later, Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Feinstein lost the governor’s race to Wilson in 1990, and as a senator won re-election in 1994 with 46.7% in a multi-candidate field and got 55% in 2000.
She has long been considered a consistently loyal Democrat, though, and in 2021, Americans for Democratic Action, which rates fealty to liberal causes, gave her a 100% rating.
Still, critics in recent years have wanted more aggressive action on some of their favorite initiatives, such as single-payer health insurance. Feinstein has not been enthusiastic about the plan.
In 2018, the state Democratic Party denied Feinstein its endorsement, giving a majority of its votes to then-state Sen. Kevin de Leon, known in the state Legislature for his aggressive championing of climate change, helping undocumented immigrants, and more.
“California Democrats are hungry for new leadership that will fight for California values from the front lines, not equivocate on the sidelines,” de Leon said at the time.
Feinstein defeated de Leon in the general election with 54%.
In recent years, Feinstein’s ability to do her job has been questioned.
After the judiciary committee’s highly contentious, partisan hearing on Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett in 2020, a hearing that Democrats routinely derided as a Republican effort to ram the nomination through the Senate before the election, Feinstein called the sessions “one of the best set of hearings that I’ve participated in.” She thanked Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and gave him a hug.
Many Democrats were outraged and questioned whether she was qualified to continue as the committee’s top Democrat. Feinstein would have chaired the committee the following year, but stepped aside.
She continued to vote, attend committee meetings and ask questions.
Tuesday, Feinstein issued a lengthy statement recalling her accomplishments.
“I campaigned in 2018 on several priorities for California and the nation: preventing and combating wildfires, mitigating the effects of record-setting drought, responding to the homelessness crisis, and ensuring all Americans have access to affordable, high-quality health care,” she said.
While Congress has passed legislation addressing those issues, she said “more needs to be done – and I will continue these efforts.”
After all, she still has about two more years to serve.
“The time has come,” she said Tuesday as she left the Senate chamber.
But, she reminded everyone, “It’s not till the end of next year.”
This story was originally published February 14, 2023 at 11:09 AM.
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