Biography

She was president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors when, in 1978, fellow supervisor Dan White shot and killed Mayor George Moscone and openly gay Supervisor Harvey Milk. She served as mayor of San Francisco from 1978-1988. In 1990, she beat then-state Attorney Gen. John Van de Kamp in the Democratic primary for governor and then, narrowly, lost to then-GOP Sen. Pete Wilson. In 1992, Feinstein defeated then-state Controller Gray Davis in the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Wilson. That race was notorious because of Davis' running ads comparing Feinstein to tax-evading hotelier Leona Helmsley. Feinstein went on to beat Republican John Seymour, a former state senator who Wilson had appointed to his old seat upon becoming governor. In 1994, Feinstein only barely survived the GOP tide against multi-millionaire Republican Michael Huffington. In 2000, she had an easier time besting Silicon Valley moderate Rep. Tom Campbell. She became a respected member of the Senate, gaining praise for her even-handed work on the Judiciary Committee.

Ascended to the mayor's office of San Francisco after her predecessor, George Moscone, was assassinated. Feinstein, at the time the head of San Francisco's Board of Supervisors, was the person who found the mayor's body. She carried a permit for a firearm when there were threats against her family in the 1980s while she was mayor; however, she later stopped carrying the permit.

Daughter, Katherine Anne, born on July 31, 1957.

Her mother Betty Rosenberg fled the Bolshevik Revolution with her czarist Russian Orthodox father. In America she became a model.

Became the first female president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in January 1978.