Dianne Feinstein biography

Synopsis

Early Years

Dianne Feinstein was born in San Francisco, California, on June 22, 1933. Born into a Jewish family, she attended a Roman Catholic school and a Jewish temple as a child, and began showing an interest in politics around age 16. After graduating from San Francisco's Sacred Heart High School, she attended Stanford University, where she was active in student government. She graduated with her bachelor's degree in 1955.

The following year, Feinstein married Jack Berman, whom she met in the San Francisco district attorney's office, and later had a daughter. In 1959, she and Berman divorced, and the next year Feinstein was appointed by Governor Pat Brown to the state's Women's Board of Parole (becoming the youngest member in the nation). In 1960, she married Bertram Feinstein, a noted surgeon.

Entering the Public Sphere

Feinstein held her Board of Parole spot until 1966, and in 1968 she became a member of the San Francisco Committee on Crime, an appointment that would color the rest of her career. The following year, Feinstein entered her first political race and was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, eventually becoming the first woman ever to serve as the board's president, a position she held for two and a half terms. She also ran for mayor twice during this period (1971, 1975), losing both times.

The year 1978 was a tragic one for Feinstein. It marked the end of her second marriage, due to her husband's untimely death, and the end of her tenure as board president, when Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk when both assassinated in November. Feinstein first became acting mayor (San Francisco's first female mayor), then was elected the following year and remained mayor until 1988. In 1980, Feinstein married for a third time, to investment banker Richard Blum.

U.S. Senate

After a failed 1990 attempt to win the California governorship, Feinstein regrouped and ran in a special election for a seat in the U.S. Senate in 1992. She won, becoming California's senior senator, and was re-elected in 1994, 2000, 2006 and 2012. Her first term as California's first female senator was a busy and productive one, as she co-authored the Gun Free Schools Act and the Hate Crimes Sentencing Enhancement Act, both signed into law in 1994. That same year, Feinstein also spearheaded legislation banning the manufacture, sale and possession of military-style assault weapons, which was signed into law on September 13, 1994.

Feinstein was the first woman member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the first woman to chair the Senate Rules and Administration Committee.