Dianne Feinstein, 89, announced Tuesday she will not seek re-election to the U.S. Senate seat where the Democrat has represented California for more than 30 years. Her career in politics has spanned more than half a century. Here’s a look at the highlights.
- 1933: Dianne E. Goldman born June 22 in San Francisco.
- 1955: Graduated from Stanford University where she studied history.
- 1962: Married second husband Bertram Feinstein, who died in 1978.
- 1969: Feinstein elected to San Francisco Board of Supervisors.
- 1978: Feinstein elected president of San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Later that year, Supervisor Dan White fatally shot Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone at City Hall. Feinstein becomes acting mayor and board later appoints her as San Francisco Mayor, the first woman to lead the city. The role is seen as launching her political career.
- 1980: Marries investor Richard Blum, who died in 2022.
- 1984: Feinstein proposes banning handguns in San Francisco, and defeats a recall attempt.
- 1990: Loses race for California governor to Republican Pete Wilson.
- 1992: Wins race for Wilson’s vacated U.S. Senate seat in the so-called Year of the Woman, when a record five women were elected to the senate, including Californian Barbara Boxer. As a senator, Feinstein would become the first woman in 2009 to chair the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and in 2017 the first woman to lead her Democratic Party on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
- 1994: Feinstein authors national assault weapon ban prohibiting semiautomatic guns with militaristic styling and ammunition magazines holding more than 10 rounds. She lists it among her most notable Senate accomplishments. Congress allowed the law to sunset in 2004 after a study cited mixed results of its effectiveness, in part due to grandfathering in large-capacity magazines already in private ownership. But Feinstein said it reduced mass shootings, and has introduced legislation to restore it.
- 1994: Feinstein was the lead sponsor of the California Desert Protection Act, which protected more than 7 million acres of desert.
- 1999: Helped secure $250 million in federal funds to match state funding for the purchase of the 7,500-acre Headwaters Forest, the largest privately held stand of uncut old-growth redwoods.
- 2010: Joins with Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison introducing a bill for AMBER Alert, a national child abduction warning system.
- 2011: Co-sponsors Respect for Marriage Act to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996 that restricted marriage to a man and a woman. The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision established a same-sex marriage right, but Congress in 2022 passed and President Biden signed a Respect for Marriage Act citing concerns the court might revisit its Obergefell ruling.
- 2014: After overseeing review of CIA’s detention and interrogation program, co-sponsors legislation with Republican Sen. John McCain outlawing the use of torture.
- 2018: Feinstein receives a letter from Christine Blasey Ford alleging she had been sexually assaulted by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh when they were in high school at a party, and is criticized by some for not immediately disclosing it. Kavanaugh was confirmed after people Ford identified as potential witnesses said they couldn’t recall the party where she said it had occurred.
- 2019: Feinstein is criticized after a meeting with children and teenagers organized by environmental group the Sunrise Movement urging her to support climate legislation known as the Green New Deal, during which she told them “there’s no way to pay for it.”
- 2020: New Yorker article based on anonymous sources raises questions about then 87-year-old Feinstein’s mental acuity.
- 2021: Feinstein files paperwork to run for re-election in 2024.
- 2022: The San Francisco Chronicle and Los Angeles Times publish articles questioning Feinstein’s mental acuity.
- 2023: California Democratic Reps. Katie Porter and Adam Schiff announce plans to run for U.S. Senate. Feinstein announces she won’t seek re-election, saying “each of us was sent here to solve problems. That’s what I’ve done for the last 30 years, and that’s what I plan to do for the next two years.”
