Dianne Feinstein, the country’s oldest senator and longtime Liberal power broker, died Friday morning at the age of 90 after more than 30 decades in the upper house.
She voted Thursday morning but missed the afternoon vote before voting at her home in Washington, D.C. Their last vote was on a procedural motion to move forward with FAA reauthorization.
The California Democrat turned 90 in June – a birthday that made her one of only five senators to ever serve in the Senate as a nonagenarian.
Born in 1933, Feinstein held her Senate seat for nearly 31 years — despite battling a series of illnesses that prevented her from doing her job.
The former San Francisco mayor has long been a bastion of Democratic politics – he previously chaired the high-level Senate Rules and Intelligence Committees and was the author of the 1994 assault weapons ban.
But her reputation began to decline as the ailing senator clung to power despite apparent cognitive decline and a two-and-a-half-month medical absence that led to a backlog of judicial confirmations by the Judiciary Committee.
With the death of Alaska Rep. Don Young in March 2021, Feinstein became the oldest member of the U.S. Congress. Iowa Republican Senator Chuck Grassley is just a few months away – he turns 90 on September 17th.
Dianne Feinstein, the country’s oldest senator and longtime Liberal power broker, died Friday morning at the age of 90 after more than 30 decades in the upper house
California Democrat Dianne Feinstein turned 90 today, making her one of only five senators to ever serve in the upper house as a nonagenarian
According to a 1985 Los Angeles Times report, Feinstein describes her childhood as “very brutal” and said her alcoholic mother frequently beat her and her sister.
Nevertheless, in 1978, at the age of 45, she became San Francisco’s first female and Jewish mayor after the city’s previous mayor, George Moscone, was assassinated along with Harvey Milk.
She held the post for a decade before launching a campaign for governor.
Feinstein married her first husband, Jack Berman, in 1956 and three years later, at 26, remained a single mother to her daughter Katherine. In 1962 she married Bertram Feinstein, who died of colon cancer in 1978. Two years later, she married San Francisco investment banker Richard Blum.
Billionaire Blum was Feinstein’s third husband and she never seemed to fully recover from his death in 2022.
Blum and Feinstein married while she was still mayor of San Francisco and became an influential couple in San Francisco. Both were wealthy – Feinstein had family money and Blum was a self-made banker.
After her failed campaign for governor in 1990, she was appointed to the Senate seat in 1992.
Feinstein speaks with an aide during a Sept. 6 hearing before the Judiciary Committee
Feinstein, D-Calif., left, and Deb Fischer, R-Neb., are seen after a group photo marking National Seersucker Day in the Ohio Clock Corridor of the U.S. Capitol on Thursday, June 8, 2023
Senator Strom Thurmond during the Judiciary Committee hearing on Billy Carter’s handling of Libya, Washington DC, July 1980. Thurmond was the oldest senator ever, retiring at 100 years old
Grassley is the second-oldest member of the Senate
Feinstein is the fifth oldest person to ever serve in the Senate. Strom Thurmond, the segregationist Democrat turned Republican, was the oldest and longest-serving senator ever: He was 100 when he retired in January 2003 after 48 years in office.
And in addition to a series of health struggles, Feinstein faced a messy family legal battle in the final chapter of her life.
She accused her late husband’s estate executors of financial elder abuse, called for their removal from office and accused them of improperly financially enriching Richard Blum’s three daughters.
The lawsuit was filed by Feinstein’s daughter Katherine, who had power of attorney for her. The three daughters from Richard Blum’s previous marriage questioned why Feinstein was able to serve in the Senate but did not file his own lawsuit.
Feinstein, meanwhile, claims the Blum daughters were unfairly appointed and have refused to pay the senator’s expenses or reimburse her medical bills.
In the most recent filing, the trustees put Feinstein’s own net worth at $50 million and said she has an annual income of over $1 million from her late husband’s trust fund and her salary.
A poll conducted over the summer by the University of California at Berkeley found that about two-thirds of California voters thought the senator was unfit for office.
The senator caused confusion when she returned to the Senate after a long absence and appeared to have forgotten she was gone.
“No, I was here. “I voted,” the then 89-year-old told reporters on May 16 when asked how she was doing and what her colleagues thought of her return. ‘Please. “You either know it or you don’t know it,” she added.
Still, the senator’s work from her prime was met with widespread praise on both sides.
“Senator Feinstein has done an outstanding job representing the people of California.” I worked closely with her as a member of the Drug Commission and the Judiciary Committee. “During the time I was chair and she was the ranking Democrat, we had a wonderful working relationship. She is a true public servant, I will miss her,” Grassley, who served with Feinstein throughout her Senate career, wrote on X.
Feinstein had planned to retire in 2024 — three House Democrats have already lined up to try to replace her: Reps. Barbara Lee, Katie Porter and Adam Schiff. On the Republican side, businessman Eric Early is running.
Feinstein returned to the Senate in May after contracting shingles, which caused vision and balance problems, as well as facial paralysis known as Ramsay Hunt syndrome, and encephalitis, a brain infection.
Her office confirmed the diagnosis after the senator herself curiously told reporters that she had the flu.
Feinstein D-CA is assisted by a staffer after the votes on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on Wednesday, June 14, 2023
Feinstein holds a copy of a billboard to be placed in 20 locations around the city on January 20, 1983
Mayor Feinstein, who ran for governor in 1990, speaks on the phone
Feinstein uses a weight machine in her home in 1990
“It was a really bad flu. “I’m feeling better, thank you,” Feinstein initially said of her condition.
It also came to light last month that Nancy Corinne Prowda, the eldest daughter of Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi, had been acting as a sort of caretaker for Feinstein, the Senate’s most senior member.
When asked whether the agreement was intended to help Schiff’s campaign, Pelosi spokesman Aaron Bennett answered curtly, “No.”
Sources suggested to Politico that the agreement was intended to ensure that Feinstein, whose state of confusion and misremembering was on clear display in the Senate, remained in office until the end of her term.
Feinstein makes a phone call in a private box during the NFL game between San Francisco 49ers and Seattle Seahawks; looks at the adjutant
Diane Feinstein’s swearing-in into the Senate in 1992
The Feinstein jogging looks much livelier than in recent years
Feinstein, D-Calif., is supported on a wheelchair by staff as she returns to the Senate floor after a more than two-month absence, Wednesday, May 10, 2023, at the Capitol in Washington
The 58-year-old marketing executive appeared with the outgoing senator following the departure of several trusted staffers.
Pelosi has endorsed Schiff in the primary, and sources told Politico that they believed the deal could be to prevent Gov. Gavin Newsom from naming Lee to fill the seat.
Newsom has pledged to appoint a black woman to the Senate, and Lee is living up to that bill.
A spokesperson for Feinstein said Prowda does not receive a salary for her role.
“Nancy Corinne and Senator Feinstein have been friends for decades. “Nancy Corinne supported her recovery from shingles,” Pelosi spokesman Aaron Bennett said in a statement to .
“Speaker Emerita Pelosi and Senator Feinstein have been friends long before their service in Congress – and their friendship is personal, not political.” “Anyone who knows Senator Feinstein knows that her service in the Senate is entirely her own decision, and Speaker Emeritus Pelosi would never claim otherwise.”