[World] Top Democrats pay tribute to late Senator Dianne Feinstein

The late Dianne Feinstein, the US Senate’s longest-serving female lawmaker, is being remembered as “a force” in American politics.

Many of the most powerful Democrats in the country gathered on Thursday for the funeral of the California lawmaker, who died last week aged 90.

“She was always tough, prepared, rigorous, and compassionate,” President Joe Biden said in a recorded message.

“God bless a great American hero. She was something else.”

Vice-President Kamala Harris, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and California Governor Gavin Newsom all attended the service, held at San Francisco’s City Hall.

In her eulogy to the late lawmaker, Vice-President Harris recalled that Ms Feinstein welcomed her to the Senate in 2017 with “a glass of California chardonnay” and “a binder full of her draft bills”.

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

Both Ms Harris and Mr Biden had once served in the senate alongside Ms Feinstein.

City Hall was a fitting venue for Ms Feinstein’s service, as she served as mayor there for a decade before embarking on a historic career as a senator.

In the days leading up to the service, she laid in state in the building, her coffin draped with an American flag.

“Senator Feinstein, that is her official title… but to us, to San Franciscans, she was Mayor Dianne Feinstein,” said London Breed, the only other woman to hold the position of mayor in the city’s history.

The service was punctuated by repeated flyovers from the Blue Angels squadron and a prayer from local Jewish leaders in a nod to Ms Feinstein’s heritage.

The San Francisco Girl’s Chorus, clad in black, sang The Impossible Dream from the musical The Man of La Mancha, a song about continuing to persevere in the service of an insurmountable goal.

The gathering was also reminder of the outsized significance San Francisco gained in national politics under Ms Feinstein’s tenure.

Ms Feinstein forged a decades-long career – first in California and then on a national scale.

She was elected to the US Senate in 1992, where she and her female colleagues worked to change the culture of the male-dominated institution.

Ms Pelosi was the senator’s contemporary and forged a similarly trailblazing career in the US House, while Ms Harris and Mr Newsom came up in the generation of Bay Area Democratic politicians who saw Ms Feinstein as a mentor and leader.

In her three decades as senator, she championed gun safety legislation and battled the US intelligence apparatus over its use of torture.

Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called her “one of the Senate’s great deal makers”.

But as she began to publicly struggle with her health in old age, she faced calls from within her own party to resign and sparked a national conversation over America’s aging political leaders.

Voter satisfaction with Ms Feinstein plummeted during her final term.

On Thursday, Ms Feinstein’s colleagues focused on the greater impact of her six-decade career.

“Millions of girls my age and long after me have grown blissfully free of the yokes our grandmothers wore because Dianne Feinstein wrestled them off,” Ms Breed said.

“She showed the way.”