Sen. Dianne Feinstein announces she will retire from Congress
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
WASHINGTON —Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., will retire from Congress at the end of 2024 after three decades in the Senate and over 50 years in public office, she announced in a statement Tuesday.
"I am announcing today I will not run for reelection in 2024 but intend to accomplish as much for California as I can through the end of next year when my term ends," Feinstein said.
Feinstein, 89, is currently the oldest sitting member of the upper chamber and the longest-serving senator from her state, first elected to the Senate in 1992.
She said in her statement Tuesday that she remains focused on passing legislation to address gun violence, promote economic growth and preserve U.S. lands. Feinstein said she's confident Democrats can achieve those goals because of their previous work.
"Even with a divided Congress, we can still pass bills that will improve lives," she said. "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."
Feinstein had been under pressure for years from other Democrats in the state to make room for a younger generation of legislators who could fill her seat. She had also declined the role in the new Congress of president pro tempore, which has traditionally been the senior member of the majority party since the mid-20th century.
Her retirement also opens up her California Senate seat for the first time in decades. A number of House Democrats have either announced a 2024 campaign bid for the seat, including Reps. Katie Porter and Adam Schiff. Rep. Barbara Lee is also planning to announce a Senate run by the end of this month, a source familiar confirmed to NBC News.
Feinstein has worked under five presidential administrations and alongside the two presidents who also served with her in the Senate: Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
In April 2022, she pushed back against a news report citing multiple anonymous colleagues expressing worry that she was mentally unfit to serve. And as recently as December, she was still conveying publicly she had no plans to retire.
Feinstein's retirement caps off a career focused on advocating for more restrictive gun measures, including championing the assault weapons ban that then-President Bill Clinton signed into law in 1994 and pushing for restrictive laws since the ban's expiration in 2004.
As ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee during President Donald Trump's four years in the White House, Feinstein led the Democrats' line of attack against three Supreme Court justice nominees: Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.
Feinstein has also long been a fierce defender of advancing gay rights and same-sex marriage. She was one of only 14 senators to vote against the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996 and celebrated the Supreme Court decision to legalize gay marriage.
She chaired the Senate Intelligence Committee while President Obama was in the White House and led a six-year review of the CIA's detention and interrogation program developed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which led to legislation barring the use of those methods of torture.
Feinstein has been known for trying to find common ground with Republicans, sometimes drawing criticism from her party's more progressive members. She parted from them, for example, on a number of issues, including by opposing single-payer, government-run health care and the Green New Deal climate proposal, which she argued was politically and fiscally unfeasible.
The California senator has come under fire at times for some of her stances. She voted, for example, in favor of the resolution authorizing the Iraq war, but later said she regretted that decision.
Before her election to the Senate in 1992, Feinstein served as the first female mayor of San Francisco and, prior to that, as a member and the president of the city's Board of Supervisors. She became mayor after the assassinations of Mayor George Moscone and city Supervisor Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in California. Feinstein was the first person to find Milk's body after he was shot.
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Not really a surprise.
She will be replaced by more of the same.
Chances are by someone even further left than she is.
from what i have read , there was already someone that was going to challenge her for her seat , then Schiff threw his hat in the ring for the seat , trying to make the jump from the house to the senate .
likely she is looking at the situation and saying time to get out of dodge .
For sure. These past few years Feinstein's staff has been running her routine. They asked her today about the resignation and she didn't even to know about it.
Look for habitual liar Adam Schiff to run for her Senate seat.
About time.....................
I think she had developed dementia. Now they'll elect a younger version.
Oh shit not a California version of AOC
California has produced many.
Glad to hear it. She has homesteaded in Congress long enough. Maybe we'll get lucky and Pelosi will join her!
Hopefully the Chinese spy driver is gone as well.
It's time for her to retire, too bad Chuck Grassley doesn't retire, he's 89 and just won re election...He'll be around 95 when his term is up.
Actually there are a number of them in both the house and senate that should retire.
Old republicans never die, they just smell that way.
There are 2 sites for unfunny jokes.
or they start looking like pelosi or feinstein , they had so many face lifts they fart when they blink because their sphincter muscles are now controlled by their eyelids ......
Feinstein probably should have retired at her last re-election. OTOH, she's had an illustrious career.