DiFi RIP

A farewell to Dianne Feinstein

Sen. Dianne Feinstein has passed away at age 90.

I disagreed with her on practically every issue, but I respected her. I really didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. She won elections and she wielded the power of public office. And on occasion, she let me know it.

Feinstein stuck to her core beliefs even when her party bristled. For example, in 1990, she was booed at the Democrats’ state convention for her support of the death penalty.

She was a warrior in the war on drugs, an issue she took so far that she supported legislation to limit which decongestants consumers could buy at pharmacies without speaking to a pharmacist. It was that sort of stand that irritated many Cali liberals.

Feinstein was so old school that she set out to curb Airbnb in the city where it was born. In a conflict between hotels and homeowners, Feinstein went with hotels.

Her support of gun laws and key role in passing a national assault-weapon ban likely will be her signature legacy — even if her stand was perpetually mocked by gun owners. But that didn’t stop her. After all, the gun issue was personal for Feinstein. She became San Francisco mayor after George Moscone was assassinated by a gun-toting Dan White.

Feinstein also was one of California’s two first female Senators in 1992, the “year of the woman” — Barbara Boxer was the other.

Boxer retired in 2017, but Feinstein stayed in the Senate after announcing last year that she would not run for re-election in 2024. It was a controversial decision as her cognitive abilities declined. But unlike the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whose failure to step down when President Obama held the Oval resulted in her replacement by a Trump-appointed justice, DiFi could stay on secure in the knowledge that her replacement would be a Democrat handpicked by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

If wags thought about the likely replacement Newsom would name — someone of the far-far-left persuasion — many found reason to root for Feinstein to stay. (After all, she was a Senator, one of 100, not an executive.)

Expect conspiracy theorists to predict that Newsom will appoint Vice President Kamala Harris to Feinstein’s seat. In that Harris was a California Senator when Joe Biden chose her as his running mate, that would be weird.

Feinstein was straight-laced, but not without humor. I remember when her staff told me she was amused with a headline for a column I wrote on wi-fi, “Rhymes with DiFi.

I believe she liked the nickname.

Feinstein was as moderate a Democrat as California could find in recent years. She cared about process and the Senate as an institution.

She loved San Francisco. When I worked for the San Francisco Chronicle, she enjoyed tooling around town to check on neighborhoods and the sort of projects former mayors monitor. During her many editorial board meetings, she made a point of exhibiting her familiarity with the City by the Bay.

I close with a nod to Jerry Roberts’ Feinstein bio., “Dianne Feinstein: Never Let Them See You Cry.” Indeed, when you think of how well she succeeded, you might just smile.

Thanks to @AGHamilton29 for posting this video, which I found separately via The Guardian.

Debra J. Saunders is a fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Chapman Center for Citizen Leadership.