Diane Feinstein’s husband Richard Bloom has died at the age of 86 after a long battle with cancer. California the senator announced Monday.
“My heart is broken today,” Feinstein said in a statement. “My husband was my partner and best friend for more than 40 years. He was by my side for the good moments and the challenges. I will miss him terribly.
The couple was a key element in California politics. The couple married in 1980, when Feinstein was mayor of San Francisco, and Bloom worked as private equity in the company he founded – Blum Capital Partners. This was Feinstein’s third marriage and Bloom’s second. He had three daughters from his previous marriage.
“Dick was incredibly devoted to his family, especially his daughters and grandchildren, and my heart is with them and everyone Dick has met,” she added. “He was the type of man who really changed his branch in life, who left things better than he found them. His great generosity is an inspiration to so many of us.
Over the years, he has advised Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton on economic policy. Former President Barack Obama has appointed Bloom a member of the President’s Global Development Council.
A longtime friend of the Dalai Lama, Feinstein said her husband’s “most enduring legacy” was his “compassion and devotion to the people of the Himalayan region.”
“My heart is broken today,” wrote Sen. Diane Feinstein, on the right, in a statement announcing the death of her husband, Richard Bloom, on the left.
“Dick was incredibly devoted to his family, especially his daughters and grandchildren, and my heart is with them and everyone Dick has met,” Feinstein told Bloom.
A longtime friend of the Dalai Lama, left, Feinstein said her husband’s “most enduring legacy” was his “compassion and devotion to the people of the Himalayan region.”
Bloom shared a laugh with Michelle Obama before giving a speech at the opening of UC Merced in 2009.
In 1981, he founded the American Himalayan Foundation, a non-profit organization that provides aid to Tibetans, Sherpas and Nepalese in the region.
“We have a hole in our hearts that will never be filled,” Feinstein concluded. “Dick, we love you, we will miss you and we will continue to celebrate everything you have achieved in an amazing life.”
Bloom reportedly asked for an ambassadorial post in Europe in the Biden administration after he and Feinstein were staunch supporters of Biden’s candidacy during the race.
As 88-year-old Feinstein spent the last thirty years in Congress, her husband also spent years on the Board of Governors of the University of California.
In 2020, a state audit accused a regent who turned out to be Bloom of writing to the Chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, to insist on accepting a candidate who was on the waiting list and had about a 1 in 4 chance of getting in
The audit found that the admission of an unnamed student was “probably influenced by the regent’s advocacy.”
In response to the audit, Bloom admitted News from San Jose Mercury he had done it many times and did not think that the letter had misused its influence.
“I’ve done it several times,” he said, adding that he didn’t think his letters “ever had much of an impact.”
“This is the first time I’ve heard that I may have done something wrong,” he said. I think that’s a lot of nonsense.
The audit came after an unrelated college admission scandal that tied celebrities and big names like Felicity Huffman and Lori Loflin.
Feinstein herself will be re-elected in 2024. The senator has not yet said whether she plans to run for re-election, but she will be 91 by election day.
Feinstein and Bloom are pictured above celebrating their engagement with champagne
Feinstein and Bloom are pictured above in 1992 celebrating her victory in the Senate
Feinstein and Bloom are pictured arriving for a state dinner with Queen Elizabeth in San Francisco in 1983.
Blunt was sometimes confronted with questions about his financial ties to China, while his wife insisted on closer relations between Washington and Beijing in the 1990s, fighting for permanent status as the nation’s most favored nation for trade with China.
After questions about his business in China, Bloom promised to donate all future profits from his investments there to his non-profit organization.
“This should remove any perception that I am in any way shaping or benefiting or influencing my wife’s position on China as a US senator,” Bloom said at the time.
There were also questions about his company’s investments in defense companies, as his wife was a member of the Senate Military Construction Appropriations Subcommittee, although none of them were found to have broken the law.