Dianne Feinstein was the senior senator representing California in the U.S. Senate. A Democrat, she served in the Senate from 1992 to 2023. Prior to her Senate tenure, Feinstein ran for Governor of California and served as Mayor of San Francisco.
In 2018, the Los Angeles Times wrote that Feinstein had emphasized her centrism when she first ran for statewide offices in the 1990s (an era when California was more conservative than it became during Feinstein's later career). Over time, she moved left of center as California became one of the most Democratic states in the nation. In 2013, The New York Times called her a "liberal lioness". Feinstein was known for her advocacy for gun control, abortion access, environmental protection, and a strong national defense.
Agriculture In March 2019, Feinstein was one of 38 senators to sign a letter to U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue warning that dairy farmers "have continued to face market instability and are struggling to survive the fourth year of sustained low prices" and urging his department to "strongly encourage these farmers to consider the Dairy Margin Coverage program."
In June 2019, Feinstein and 18 other Democratic senators sent a letter to USDA Inspector General (IG) Phyllis K. Fong with the request that the IG investigate USDA instances of retaliation and political decision-making and asserted that not conducting an investigation would mean these "actions could be perceived as a part of this administration’s broader pattern of not only discounting the value of federal employees, but suppressing, undermining, discounting, and wholesale ignoring scientific data produced by their own qualified scientists."
Bailout On October 1, 2008, Feinstein voted in favor of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act.
Cabinet appointments
In November 2007, Feinstein was one of only six Democrats to vote to confirm Michael Mukasey as U.S. Attorney General.
Campaign reform In January 2016, Feinstein was one of 29 senators to sign a letter to President Obama urging him to issue a final executive order that would require federal contractors to disclose political donations, arguing that form of disclosure was "a modest step that would expose an especially troubling type of secret money: campaign contributions that have the potential to influence government contracting practices."
Child care In 2019, Feinstein and 34 other senators introduced the Child Care for Working Families Act, a bill that created 770,000 new child care jobs and that ensured families under 75 percent of the state median income did not pay for child care with higher earning families having to pay "their fair share for care on a sliding scale, regardless of the number of children they have." The legislation also supported universal access to high-quality preschool programs for all 3 and 4-year-olds and gave the child care workforce a changed compensation and training to aid both teachers and caregivers.
Copyright Feinstein had supported Hollywood and the content industry when it had come into conflict with technology and fair use on intellectual property issues. In 2006, she co-sponsored the "PERFORM Act", or the "Platform Equality and Remedies for Rights Holders in Music Act of 2006", in the Senate, which would require satellite, cable and internet broadcasters to incorporate digital rights management technologies into their transmission. Over-the-air broadcasting would not be affected.
Criminal justice reform In December 2018, Feinstein voted for the First Step Act, legislation aimed at reducing recidivism rates among federal prisoners through expanding job training and other programs in addition to forming an expansion of early-release programs and modifications on sentencing laws such as mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders, "to more equitably punish drug offenders."
Death penalty Feinstein supported capital punishment for most of her career, but shifted towards opposition in 2018.
Disaster relief In March 2019, Feinstein was one of 11 senators to sign a letter to congressional leaders urging them to "bring legislation providing disaster supplemental appropriations to your respective floors for consideration immediately" after noting that the previous year had seen 124 federal disaster declarations approved for states, territories, and tribal nations across the U.S.
Drug policy In December 2018, Feinstein was one of 21 senators to sign a letter to Food and Drugs Commissioner Scott Gottlieb stating their approval of the actions of the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) to hinder youth access to e-cigarettes and urging the FDA "to take additional, stronger steps to prevent and reduce e-cigarette use among youth."
Education In March 2019, Feinstein was one of 13 senators to sign a letter to U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy Devos calling for the Education Department to do more to assist Argosy University students as they faced campus closures across the U.S. and critiquing the Education Department as failing to provide adequate measures to protect students or keep them notified of ongoing updates.
Environment Feinstein and Senator Alan Cranston worked for over 10 years to pass the California Desert Protection Act. The bill was signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1994. The bill protected of California's desert lands as wilderness and national parks. The Act doubled the size of the National Wilderness Preservation System in California, and was the largest wilderness bill in California's history.
Senators Feinstein and Barbara Boxer were the champions of the Northern California Coastal Wild Heritage Wilderness Act, which was signed into law by President George W. Bush on October 17, 2006. The bill protected of federal land as wilderness, and of stream as a wild and scenic river, including such popular areas as the King Range and Cache Creek. Senators Feinstein and Boxer worked with Representative Mike Thompson, the sponsor of the bill in the House, in the 5-year effort to pass the legislation.
Feinstein, along with her colleague Boxer, voted in favor of subsidy payments to conventional commodity farm producers, at the cost of subsidies for conservation-oriented farming. Later, Feinstein had not taken a stand on the widely criticized subsidies in the 2007 U.S. Farm Bill.
In November 2018, Feinstein was one of 25 Democratic senators to cosponsor a resolution specifying key findings of the Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change report and National Climate Assessment. The resolution affirmed the senators' acceptance of the findings and their support for bold action toward addressing climate change.
In June 2019, Feinstein was one of 44 senators to introduce the International Climate Accountability Act, legislation that would prevent President Trump from using funds in an attempt to withdraw from the Paris Agreement and directing the president's administration to instead develop a strategic plan for the United States that would allow it to meet its commitment under the Paris Agreement.
Feinstein had declined to back the Green New Deal proposed by representative Ocasio Cortez.
Foreign affairs In December 2010, Feinstein voted for the ratification of New Start, a nuclear arms reduction treaty between the United States and Russian Federation obliging both countries to have no more than 1,550 strategic warheads as well as 700 launchers deployed during the next seven years along with providing a continuation of on-site inspections that halted when START I expired the previous year. It was the first arms treaty with Russia in eight years.
In June 2017, Feinstein voted for a resolution by Rand Paul and Chris Murphy that would block President Trump's 510 million sale of precision-guided munitions to Saudi Arabia that made up a portion of the 110 billion arms sale Trump announced during his visit to Saudi Arabia the previous year.
In March 2018, Feinstein voted against tabling a resolution spearheaded by Bernie Sanders, Chris Murphy, and Mike Lee that would have required President Trump to withdraw American troops either in or influencing Yemen within the next 30 days unless they were combating Al-Qaeda.
In a December 2018 letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Feinstein and Bernie Sanders advocated against a provision of a spending package barring companies from endorsing anti-Israel boycotts promoted by governmental groups, writing that while they did not support "the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, we remain resolved to our constitutional oath to defend the right of every American to express their views peacefully without fear of or actual punishment by the government."
In March 2019, Feinstein was one of nine Democratic senators to sign a letter to Salman of Saudi Arabia requesting the release of human rights lawyer Waleed Abu al-Khair and writer Raif Badawi, women's rights activists Loujain al-Hathloul and Samar Badawi, and Dr. Walid Fitaih. The senators wrote, "Not only have reputable international organizations detailed the arbitrary detention of peaceful activists and dissidents without trial for long periods, but the systematic discrimination against women, religious minorities and mistreatment of migrant workers and others has also been well-documented."
In April 2019, Feinstein was one of thirty-four senators to sign a letter to President Trump encouraging him "to listen to members of your own Administration and reverse a decision that will damage our national security and aggravate conditions inside Central America", asserting that Trump had "consistently expressed a flawed understanding of U.S. foreign assistance" since becoming president and that he was "personally undermining efforts to promote U.S. national security and economic prosperity" through preventing the use of Fiscal Year 2018 national security funding. The senators argued that foreign assistance to Central American countries created less migration to the U.S., citing the funding's helping to improve conditions in those countries.
China Feinstein supported a conciliatory approach between China and Taiwan and fostered increased dialogue between high-level Chinese representatives and U.S. senators during her first term as senator. When asked about her relation with Beijing, Feinstein said,
Feinstein had criticized Beijing's missile tests near Taiwan and has called for dismantlement of missiles pointed at the island. She promoted stronger business ties between China and Taiwan over confrontation, and suggested that the U.S. patiently "use two-way trade across Taiwan Strait as a platform for more political dialogue and closer ties."
She believed that deeper cross-strait economic integration "will one day lead to political integration and will ultimately provide the solution" to the Taiwan issue.
In November 2017, in response to efforts by China to purchase tech companies based in the US, Feinstein was one of nine senators to cosponsor a bill that would broaden the federal government's ability to prevent foreign purchases of U.S. firms through increasing the strength of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). The scope of the CFIUS would be expanded to allow it to review along with possibly decline smaller investments and add additional national security factors for CFIUS to consider including if information about Americans would be exposed as part of transactions or whether the deal would facilitate fraud.