Dianne Feinstein honored at San Francisco memorial

Rep. Nancy Pelosi speaks during the funeral services

Oct. 5, 2023 3 AM PT

SAN FRANCISCO — During a grand memorial service on the front steps of San Francisco City Hall, the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein was remembered by family and the nation’s top leaders Thursday as a committed public servant who broke barriers for women and served Californians for decades with integrity and grit.

In a eulogy before hundreds of family members, friends, dignitaries and fellow politicians, Vice President Kamala Harris called Feinstein an “icon of California,” a “serious and gracious person” who “commanded respect” but also gave it.

Harris, echoed by others, talked about how Feinstein always “welcomed debate and discussion” on the policies she helped pass into law — as long as it was “well-informed and studied.”

“Simply put,” Harris said, “she was a force.”

The tribute marked a full-circle ending to a pioneering political life that began in the same building more than half a century before. Feinstein, who died last week at age 90, was president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and the city’s first woman mayor before serving California in the Senate for more than three decades.

It was in that building that Feinstein’s career was jump-started by tragedy. Her long connection to the city’s civic governance was invoked by speakers throughout the ceremony.

The service was closed to the public by a wide security perimeter but was livestreamed online. Feinstein lay in state inside City Hall on Wednesday, when members of the public were encouraged to visit and sign a condolence book.

The memorial brought rows of Congress members, prominent political donors and Capitol Hill staffers together under a baking midday sun at a time of intense political tension back in Washington — where California’s influence has been transformed in recent days with Feinstein’s death and the ouster of Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) as speaker of the House.

It also came as would-be Feinstein successors are working ahead of next year’s election to gain the support of her constituency, which had returned Feinstein to Congress time and time again despite leaning more liberal than she did in recent years.

Gov. Gavin Newsom hugs an invited guest after the memorial service

Gov. Gavin Newsom has appointed longtime labor leader Laphonza Butler to fill Feinstein’s seat in the Senate until the election. At the service, Butler sat between Sen. Alex Padilla and Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin, along with a slew of other elected officials including Rep. Barbara Lee and Rep. Adam Schiff, candidates for Feinstein’s seat. Newsom sat in the front row.

Both Lee and Schiff flew on Air Force II with Harris, along with U.S. Reps. Jared Huffman, Eric Swalwell and Maxine Waters. Former Rep. Jane Harman, who was with Feinstein the day she died, also flew with them. Rep. Katie Porter, who is also running for Feinstein’s seat, didn’t attend.

The service, however, remained fully focused on Feinstein — concluding with a deeply personal remembrance from her granddaughter Eileen Mariano.

Mariano, the daughter of Feinstein’s daughter Katherine, praised her grandmother for helping to save Joshua Tree and other parts of California and for fighting for the LGBTQ+ community, including during the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s.

But she said she would also remember her as “the most incredible grandmother,” with whom she had “an effortless connection.”

Mariano recalled childhood memories of Feinstein teaching her about San Francisco history, giving her crooked haircuts at home, playing hide and seek with her and curling up with her on the couch to watch movies. She also taught her in tough times to “keep going no matter what,” she said.

“My grandmother,” Mariano said, “was my biggest cheerleader.”

Eileen Mariano, granddaughter of late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, speaks during the memorial service

Feinstein had represented California in the U.S. Senate since 1992, and much of her tremendous political legacy was won over the course of her three decades on Capitol Hill.

In recorded remarks played during the service, President Biden recalled watching Feinstein lead the fight for an assault weapons ban in the 1990s, and her efforts to protect the environment and her work on national security.

“Thank God we had Dianne showing us the way by the power of her example,” Biden said.

U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), a personal friend of Feinstein, said living up to her standard was always “quite a challenge.”

Pelosi praised Feinstein for her legacy in Washington, confirming judges up to her last days, getting a breast cancer stamp created and passing the assault weapons ban, among other things. But she also praised Feinstein for her San Francisco accomplishments, such as helping to save the city’s cable cars.

“The list goes on and on, from the U.S. Capitol back to San Francisco, where Dianne Feinstein is our forever mayor,” Pelosi said.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer also recalled Feinstein’s work on the assault weapons ban, called her a close friend and said her “integrity made her sparkle like a diamond” in the Senate.

Despite her time spent in Washington, Feinstein always called San Francisco home, and many of the memories shared about her were based in the city.

It was here that Feinstein first entered local politics by winning a seat on the Board of Supervisors in 1969, and here where she was catapulted onto the national political stage in 1978 when Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk were assassinated and she was elevated from board president to mayor.

She was the first woman in city history to serve as mayor, and she did so for 10 years, until 1988. Many residents still remember her as much for her local contributions as her national ones.

Feinstein never stopped pestering her successors at City Hall about municipal issues big and small, to their amusement and consternation.

San Francisco’s current mayor, London Breed, recalled receiving constant good advice from Feinstein, including during the COVID-19 pandemic, when Feinstein told her to “focus on doing the right thing” for the city.

But Breed also recalled Feinstein’s influence on her as a young girl and other young women around the country — another theme of the memorial.

Breed said she met Feinstein for the first time when she was 13 and a French horn player at Benjamin Franklin Middle School, a band Feinstein would often get to play at events in the city. Breed credited Feinstein with showing her and girls throughout San Francisco that they could do anything their male classmates could — that they could achieve great things.

“For kids my age, we just always accepted that a woman could be in charge,” Breed said. “We considered it normal.”

Harris recalled being a young Bay Area prosecutor 30 years ago and driving into San Francisco from Oakland to attend an election watch party the night Feinstein and former Sen. Barbara Boxer both won office in 1992 — later dubbed the “Year of the Woman.”

“We celebrated an historic feat: We were the first state to elect two female Senators,” Harris said — thanking Feinstein for pulling other women behind her into power.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, center, hugs Eileen Mariano, granddaughter of Sen. Feinstein

“Dianne, the women of America have come a long way. Our country has come a long way,” Harris said. “You helped move the ball forward, and our nation salutes you.”

The memorial was accented time and again by flyovers from the U.S. Navy’s Blue Angels, which the speakers had to pause to let pass by. After one such pause, Breed thanked Feinstein for bringing the Angels to San Francisco.

Fleet Week is a yearly tradition in San Francisco, which brings some of the largest ships of the Navy’s armada to the city’s shores. Feinstein is widely credited with bringing the yearly tradition to the city as mayor in the early 1980s.

It also was quintessential Feinstein, in that her desire to honor service members angered some pockets of San Francisco’s extremely liberal populace.

Pelosi at one point paused to allow for the roar of the jets to pass, then quipped that the festivities were going the way Feinstein would have wanted — which was often how things played out during her life.

“It’s what Dianne wants,” Pelosi said. “That’s what we get.”