[marniewebb]

California resident here. Female and in what was then called junior high school when Senator Feinstein became Mayor of San Francisco.

She was one the people who changed the profile of power. That profile can only change so much at a time and change it to accommodate women was and still is a very big deal.

I didn’t always agree with her but I always thought she was committed to public service. And, like any long-serving senator, she changed her mind. Time and growth will do that, especially in a legislative body that should be built on compromise and inclusivity.

It’s sad to me that the end her career became dominated by not stepping down. I don’t know much — or anything — about back room politics but can imagine it was a decision calculated and agreed to by more than her or her staff.

I read an article a few months ago — I can’t find it now because of today’s news flood for her name — that talked about the way she wrote letters, position papers, instructions for years. She communicated in writing. And that is part of what gave her a high functioning staff and one that could support her in this last term. She had spent a lifetime in public service documenting what she thought.

In President Biden’s statement, he wrote that she was often the only woman in the room. Every article is chronicling her firsts. That she was the first woman to represent CA in the senate and that she was tenacious and held on when other people thought she should go quietly seems to me a perfectly logical pairing.