9:31 a.m. ET, September 29, 2023
Senator Dianne Feinstein has died
By CNN’s Lauren Fox, Manu Raju and Haley Talbot Senator Dianne Feinstein waits to board an elevator after a vote on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC in January 2019. Calla Kessler/The Washington Post/Getty Images Dianne Feinstein, whose three decades in the Senate made her the longest-serving U.S. senator in history. According to a known source, she has died. She was 90.
Her death gives California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom the power to appoint a lawmaker to serve out the remainder of Feinstein’s term and retain the Democratic majority in the chamber until early January 2025. In March 2021, Newsom publicly said he had a list of “multiple” replacements and promised to appoint a Black woman should Feinstein retire.
Feinstein, a Democrat, was a fixture in California politics for decades and was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1992 after a historic political career in San Francisco.
Feinstein has broken a number of glass ceilings over the course of her life, leaving her fingerprints on some of Capitol Hill’s most consequential works in recent history, including the now-repealed 1994 federal ban on assault weapons and the 2014 CIA torture report.
In her later years, the California Democrat’s health was the subject of increasing scrutiny and speculation. A hospitalization for shingles in February led to an extended absence from the Senate, prompting complaints from Democrats as Feinstein’s absence slowed the confirmation of Democratic-appointed judicial nominees.
When she returned to Capitol Hill three months later, it was discovered that she had suffered from several complications during her recovery, including Ramsay Hunt syndrome and encephalitis. A fall in August landed her briefly in the hospital.
In February 2023, she confirmed that she would not run for re-election, telling CNN, “The time has come.”
Feinstein’s final vote in the Senate came Thursday morning – a procedural vote on short-term government funding. She did not take part in both afternoon votes.