Former Democratic Senator from California
Dianne Feinstein (June 22, 1933 — September 29, 2023) was the daughter of a respected surgeon and professor of the University of California at San Francisco Medical School. She received a B.A. in History from Stanford University in 1955 where she served as Student Body Vice-President. She was married to Richard C. Blum, has one daughter, Katherine, three stepdaughters, Annette, Heidi and Eileen and two granddaughters, Eileen and Lea, and one grandson, Mitchell.
In 1960, she was appointed by California Governor Pat Brown to the women's parole board. In 1969, she was elected to the San Francisco County Board of Supervisors, where she became the first woman President of the Board. In 1978, after the assassination of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, she became the first woman Mayor of San Francisco, California. She was elected to two more terms.
Feinstein was first elected to the senate in 1992 to fill the remaining two years of then-Senator Pete Wilson's term when he resigned to become California's governor. She was elected to a full six year term in 1994, and re-elected in 2000, 2006, 2012, and 2018. Feinstein was the first woman to serve on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
She co-chaired the Senate Cancer Coalition and was Vice-Chair of the National Dialogue on Cancer, with former President George Bush and his wife Barbara Bush.
Her Committees:
Her website and contact info was at www.senate.gov/~feinstein
Editor's note: Feinstein passed away at the age of 90 while still in office after nearly 32 years in the US Senate on September 29, 2023.