WSJ:

Longtime Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who blazed a trail for women in California politics and challenged the CIA’s detention and interrogation program, has died. She was 90 years old.

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In 1978, after the assassinations of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and City Supervisor Harvey Milk, Feinstein became the first woman mayor of the city. She served until 1988 and during her tenure renovated the city’s cable car system.

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One of her first notable pieces of legislation was the enactment of the federal assault-weapons ban in 1994, which prohibited the sale, manufacture and import of military-style assault weapons. A series of deadly shootings in California and around the country pushed proponents to pass the law, which expired in 2004. Subsequent studies of the decade during the ban have found it had a minimal impact on decreasing mass shootings but it has remained a priority of Democrats.

Feinstein backed the authorization of using military force in 2002 to engage with Iraq against Saddam Hussein’s regime. As a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Feinstein was part of the 2004 investigation that looked at the government’s evaluation of Iraq’s weaponry leading up to the invasion. The report found numerous failures in the intelligence-gathering and analysis process.

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Feinstein played a key role in handling the sexual-misconduct allegations against then-nominee Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court in 2018. Feinstein received a letter from Dr. Christine Blasey Ford accusing Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her many decades prior. Feinstein held on to the letter sent in July until mid-September after leaks and drew criticism from both Republicans and Democrats for holding on to it. She said she was respecting Blasey Ford’s request for confidentiality. The Senate heard from both Ford and Kavanaugh before the eventual confirmation in October.

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