Boundary-breaking and Complicated, How Should We Evaluate Dianne Feinstein’s Political Legacy?
On November 27, 1978, San Francisco’s mayor George Moscone and Board of Supervisors member Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man elected to political office in California, were shot and killed by former supervisor Dan White in the City Hall office, a hateful act of violence that then-Board of Supervisors President Dianne Feinstein witnessed first hand.
“I could smell the gunpowder. Harvey was on his stomach,” Feinstein later recounted in an interview in 2018. She was the first person who found Milk and failed after trying everything to resuscitate him; grief-stricken but determined, she held a press conference and announced the deaths in front of microphones and cameras, drawing audible gasps and screams. Due to Mayor Muscone’s death, the Board of Supervisors held an emergency meeting and voted in favor of appointing Feinstein and acting and later elected mayor of San Francisco, thrusting her name and career to national recognition. On the anniversary of the assassination, Mayor Feinstein carried a candle and marched with tens of thousands of mourners next to a banner with the words “GAY POWER, HARVEY MILK LIVES,” a moment famously captured by Associated Press photographer Paul Sakuma.
This was the well-known backstory of California’s Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, the longest serving female Senator in the history of Congress, who died at the age of 90 on Friday, September 29 after a long battle with ill health. Despite being known for entering the political arena as a trailblazer rising from a shocking tragedy and a powerful advocate against gun violence and for equal rights, her legacy has been often complicated by her visibly failing health during her last term in the Senate. How should we remember and understand Senator Feinstein and her legacy, could potentially define our generation’s evolving view and reflection on American politics.
After serving as San Francisco’s Mayor for two terms, where she was remembered for revitalizing the city’s economy and public transportation system, successfully hosting the 1984 Democratic National Convention, and promoting diversity by appointing women, people of color and LGBTQ+ people into political positions, Feinstein was elected in Senate in 1992 with Barbara Boxer, becoming the third and fourth woman Senator to ever be elected to their own right in American history, and the first time two women are representing a state in the Senate. The death of Moscone and Milk at the hands of a gunman deeply impacted Feinstein, who pledged to curb gun violence using every venue possible upon her election. In 1994, after a mass shooting in California claimed the lives of nine people renewed debates for stricter gun enforcement, Feinstein became the loudest advocate and primary author of the Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act, which effectively banned the manufacture and civilian use of certain semi-automatic assault weapons, most notably the AR-15, that was signed into law as a part of the 1994 Crime Bill by President Bill Clinton that year. Because of her work across the aisle in her push against assault weapons, the law passed in the Senate with overwhelming support.
Another memorable moment in the Washington years of Senator Feinstein was her position as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which oversees the confirmation of Federal judges and Supreme Court Justices, for over a decade. According to her own words, the contentious confirmation hearing of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court, where a then all-male committee courted with Thomas but accosted Anita Hill, a former clerk that accused him of sexual assault, she became adamant on joining the prestigious committee to ensure a fairer representation. In 2017, Feinstein became the first female ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, a position she held until 2020, even though she has kept the position as a member of the committee until her death.
Beyond these glass-shattering moments, Feinstein was also on known for her advocacy for women’s rights as an adamant proponent for the Violence Against Women Act, arguing against the Defense for Marriage Act that outlawed gay marriage, leading an investigation into CIA enhancement interrogation techniques, and spearheading bills that protected natural reserves. Her decades-long service and bipartisan perseverance attracted tributes and praises from both Democrats and Republicans after her death was announced; President Joe Biden called her a “historic figure and a great friend,” California Governor Gavin Newsom called her someone who “never lost her belief in the spirit of political cooperation,” while Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called her “an incredibly effective person at every level.” To mourn her loss, her seat was draped in black and a vase of white flowers was put atop. As noted by several journalists and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, on the day that she passed, she was in the Senate chamber, voting to expand a negotiation deadline that could potentially avoid a government shutdown.
However, as the political polarization in Washington becomes more pronounced and the problems created by partisan bias become more immediate, no matter how much we should applaud and recognize Senator Feinstein’s ability to push for political change, we can’t ignore the negative impact that the passage of time can have on anyone. In recent years, Feinstein’s physical health and cognitive abilities have shown a marked decline as she aged, and her past efforts on bipartisan collaboration and moderate political positions have come under increased scrutiny.
A notable incident during her earlier years that attracted renewed attention was replacing the Confederate Battle flag, a symbol widely associated with enslavement, white supremacy and racial division, after a Black protester took it down several times during her tenure as San Francisco’s Mayor. The flag was flown in front of the City Hall as an exhibition known as the “Pavilion of American Flags” that flew 18 different flags throughout American history. Even though the exhibition existed prior to her election, the city’s decision to resurrect the flag gained notable criticism, eventually leading to the city’s Board of Education proposing to remove her name from a local Elementary School. After the intervention of a Black city Supervisor, the Confederate flag was permanently removed.
Despite her historic breakthrough as the first ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, her handling of the appointment of Trump-nominated Supreme Court Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett also drew considerable ire from the left. During Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing, Feinstein received a letter that detailed a case of him sexually assaulting his classmate, Christine Blasey Ford (who at the time wished to stay anonymous), while they were both in high school. Despite having the letter of complaint for a while, it was only until a week before the committee’s formal vote did she publicly acknowledge its existence. Throughout the confirmation process, despite eventually voting against confirming him, Feinstein was panned for being overly deferential and seemingly sympathetic to Kavanaugh.
In 2020, when liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died months before the Presidential election, Trump immediately nominated Amy Coney Barrett, a religious conservative that shared nearly opposite judicial philosophy with Ginsburg. Despite the Republicans stalling for nearly a year to thwart the confirmation of a replacement when conservative Justice Antonin Scalia died before the 2016 Presidential election, Feinstein was once again being accused of not pressuring hard enough against her Republican colleagues on the hypocritical approach in confirming Barrett at lightning speed, including praising then-Committee chairman, Republican Lindsey Graham, for organizing “one of the best set of hearings that I’ve participated in.”
Feinstein’s visibly declining health during the Biden Presidency was believed by many to be disastrous due to her seat at the Judiciary Committee, as she rejected multiple calls to resign and Republicans refused to replace her seat with another Democratic incumbent until she leaves her position had stalled the confirmation of the White House’s Federal judges for months. Multiple videos this year have shown the trailblazing Senator in a frail state on a wheelchair and struggling to provide an intelligible response. In lieu of mourning and tributes, her failing health and eventual passing have renewed calls for enforceable term limits and age requirements, to prevent similar situations from happening again.
Keeping his previous promise, Governor Gavin Newsom will appoint a Black woman to finish Feinstein’s remaining term until January of 2025; meanwhile, the contentious battle for her seat between current Democratic Representatives Adam Schiff, Katie Porter, and Barbara Lee had seen no signs of cooling down, which could potentially mark a more progressive shift in terms of the political influence of this prominent position.
The 1994 environment of political bipartisanship that made her cooperative assault weapons ban bill possible has been long gone. Today’s Republican Party has been steadfastly obsequious towards a twice-impeached former President with four separate felony indictment cases spanning from spearheading an armed insurrection against American democracy to intentionally withholding classified national secret documents at his club and personal residence. In a column remembering her legacy, her former staffer and current MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin called Feinstein’s legacy a “maddening study of contradictions.” Given the Senator’s lifelong pursuit to establish empathy in the cold halls of Washington and the masterful ability to negotiate and find middle ground for political compromises, despite an unwillingness to yield, throughout her career, Rubin believes using simplistic and arbitrary terms to conclude her legacy only by certain snapshots or moments in her decades of service.
Feinstein’s death will be remembered as a sorrowful moment as it marked the end of a historic female political dealmaker’s decades-long service to the people of California and the United States, but her legacy can only be carried on if a new generation of political leaders that more accurately represent the identity composition of people living in this country could be elected to prestigious institutions and fight for the pleas that regular Americans are asking for.
