Sen. Dianne Feinstein Of California Dies At 90

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), elected in 1992 and the longest-serving woman in the U.S. Senate, has died at the age of 90. To call her a trailblazer would be almost tame: the first woman president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, the first woman mayor of San Francisco, and one of two of the first women elected to the U.S. Senate from California. In February, she announced she would retire at the end of 2024, when her term would end. https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/1707739001656930703 From NBC News:

The California Democrat was a vocal advocate of gun control measures, championing the assault weapons ban that then-President Bill Clinton signed into law in 1994, and pushing for restrictive laws since the ban’s expiration in 2004.

A centrist Democrat, she was known for trying to find common ground with Republicans, sometimes drawing criticism from her party’s liberal members.

She parted from them on a number of issues, including opposing single-payer, government-run health care and the ambitious Green New Deal climate proposal, which she argued was politically and fiscally unfeasible.

A champion for LGBTQ rights, she authored the 2022 Respect for Marriage Act that federalized same-sex marriage. In the mid-1980s, as San Francisco’s mayor, she directed spending to combat HIV and AIDS that surpassed that of the federal government. She opposed the ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ policy that allowed LGBTQ military service members to remain in service only as long as they were silent about who they were. And in 1996, she was one of only 14 senators to vote against the Defense of Marriage Act, which prevented the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages. California Gov. Gavin Newsom will appoint a successor to serve the remainder of Feinstein’s term. He’s previously indicated he won’t choose one of the 2024 candidates who’ve already announced their candidacy for the Senate seat. https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1707781336918847490 https://twitter.com/DanLinden/status/1707783589482332615 https://twitter.com/BarackObama/status/1707783159813755343 https://twitter.com/justinbaragona/status/1707761324623614405