At the end of September, we learned that U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California) died, but in many ways, we had already been saying goodbye to her.
Earlier this year, the senator was absent from Washington for more than three months with a series of health issues. Many of her staunch friends and allies were calling on her to consider resigning.
I supported Feinstein through six elections, beginning in 1992 when Feinstein first campaigned for the Senate. That year, and again in 1994, I was the Democratic Party standard-bearer for state Assembly here, with Feinstein on those ballots. I lost. She won both times.
In 1994, Feinstein was nearly defeated by first-term Santa Barbara Congressman Michael Huffington. In each of the next four elections, though, she was handily reelected. Her legacy is secured as the longest-serving senator from California in our 173-year history, and the longest-serving female senator in our nation’s history.
However, Feinstein locked down her legacy very early in her career:
• Guns: Within her first two years in office, Feinstein led the campaign for the 1994 assault weapons ban. This measure may have saved many lives, but despite her efforts to extend it, Congress allowed it to lapse after only 10 years. She continued to advocate for “common sense” measures to reduce gun violence and improve firearms safety over her entire career.
• The California desert: In those very busy first two years, Feinstein also led an intense fight to secure passage of the California Desert Protection Act that established Death Valley and Joshua Tree National Parks and the Mojave National Preserve. This bill protected almost 8 million acres of delicate desert ecosystems. And Feinstein stayed the course. In 2016, she persuaded President Obama to designate three new national monuments in the California desert, expanding protection to another 1.8 million acres of the Mojave.
• Women’s rights: Feinstein often partnered with fellow U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-California), also elected in 1992 following the rampant sexism on display as Anita Hill testified in the Senate against Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. Altogether, eight women were elected to the Senate in that “Year of the Woman” in politics. Feinstein, Boxer, and their cohort championed the rights of women to equal employment opportunity, protection from domestic violence and workplace harassment, and reproductive freedom.
Feinstein spent more than a half-century in public service, working well past her 90th birthday. The day before she died, Feinstein cast her final vote on the Senate floor: to extend funding for the government, which was ultimately successful.
In 2016, Boxer didn’t to run for reelection to a fifth term so she could enjoy more time with her grandchildren, her daughter, Nicole, and son-in-law, Tony Rodham.
Unfortunately, Feinstein never got the privilege of being a full-time grandmother to Eileen Feinstein Mariano, now a top advisor to San Francisco Mayor London Breed. She could have and probably should have chosen to leave her seat—especially as it became clear that she suffered from a series of conditions that included encephalitis, shingles, and memory issues.
So why did Feinstein stay in her seat? In 2017, Feinstein had earned a coveted seat on the Judiciary Committee—the same committee that had so casually scorned the sworn testimony of Anita Hill 25 years earlier.
Earlier this year, Feinstein was absent from the Senate for three months while recovering from an infection related to shingles. But she was determined to return to her position, and did so in May, although confined to a wheelchair and showing clear signs of fatigue. Still, she was able to use her seat on the Judiciary Committee to confirm dozens of President Biden’s nominees for the federal bench.
Feinstein was among the most articulate, passionate, and effective politicians who have ever represented California—or any other state in this country. She truly cared about her constituents, and she worked hard to advance their interests, even when that work required compromise with other members of Congress who didn’t share her values. She was highly respected by her Democratic colleagues and by most Republicans.
In his Capitol Journal column this week in the Los Angeles Times, George Skelton heaped praise on Feinstein as “the kind of dedicated, workaholic, straight-talking public servant we’d like all our elected officials to be.” Skelton went on to characterize her as the best California senator in history, no small praise, given Skelton’s six decades covering politics in Sacramento and Washington.
Our congressman, Salud Carbajal (D-Santa Barbara), also praised Feinstein as “our state’s foremost expert at shattering glass ceilings and an indefatigable champion for … the Golden State.” He noted her work on maritime safety and liability laws in the wake of the disastrous and fatal fire on the Conception dive boat, and her championing of the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary.
There’s widespread but not universal support for the sanctuary. A key sticking point is over its name. Making it all about the Chumash is unpopular among the other local tribe that has a legitimate claim to pre-European maritime heritage on the Central Coast, the Salinan tribe.
Let’s consider naming this new sanctuary after Feinstein. She clearly deserves the honor, and as Feinstein biographer and former San Francisco Chronicle managing editor Jerry Roberts asserted, “she was in nobody’s tribe.” Δ
John Ashbaugh got acquainted with Dianne Feinstein in his two campaigns for state Assembly. Write a response for publication by emailing it to letters@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Oct 5-12, 2023.
Fun fact: The Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee which supposedly “casually scorned” Anita Hill’s testimony at the Thomas confirmation hearings was none other than Joe Biden. And can you really call it “scorning” when the media exposure turned her into a left wing hero who was able to exploit the exposure into 30 years of liberal celebrity? The committee just declined to accept her testimony at face value, noting that she eagerly followed Thomas into another position, and had never told anyone about the supposed harassment, despite the fact that she was herself an experienced civil rights lawyer whose professional role was to address this sort of behavior . “Scorning” might more accurately describe the treatment that Paula Jones got from the Democrats and their media shills only a few years later when she described Bill Clinton’s use of the Arkansas state secretarial staff as a “dating resource” to service his “needs”, and his use of armed State Troopers to bring female staffers to him for encounters not mentioned in their job description.
But, all that aside, while I disagreed with Feinstein on most issues, she would be a better naming choice than anyone else that the wacky Democrats are likely to come up with. She was relatively thoughtful, responsible, and, well, sane.
John, did Anita or DiFi get hit with civil judgments for “sexual abuse”, fraud or were they ever hit with 91 counts of criminal charges?
Liberal celebrity? I guess they have stars on Hollywoods walk of fame like the former guy? You know the same guy who had to pay $2,000,000 because he and his family misused charity funds?
Did Anita’s attorney’s quit her case because she refused to accept a settlement, like Paula’s attorney’s did?
Thomas? Oh right that guy who has received millions in “gifts”from his billionaire sponsors, yet only reported 2 (about $45,000?) in his annual filings?
FUN FACTS