Dainne Feinstein is a Democratic U.S. Senator from California, first elected to the post in 1992.
Feinstein's father, Leon Goldman, was a nationally renowned surgeon and a tenured physician at the University of California Medical Center. She married Jack Berman, a colleague at the San Francisco District Attorney's office in 1957. They divorced three years later.
Shortly after college graduation she started her career in politics and married neurosurgeon Bertram Feinstein, who died of colon cancer in 1978. In 1969 she won a position on the San Francisco County Board of Supervisors. She held this position for nine years and became the Board's first female president.
Feinstein married Richard C. Blum, and investment banker, in 1980. They are worth between $25 and $50 million.
In November 1978, San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk were assassinated by Dan White, a rival politician. As the president of the Board of Supervisors, Feinstein was automatically appointed the mayor of San Francisco, becoming the first female mayor of the city. After she completed Moscone's term, she was elected in 1979 and re-elected in 1983, serving until 1988.
In 1990 Feinstein made an unsuccessful run for Governor of California, losing to Republican Senator Pete Wilson, who vacated his seat in the Senate to assume the governorship. In 1992, Feinstein won a special election to fill Wilson's Senate seat. She was re-elected in 1994 and again in 2000.
Feinstein is an ardent supporter of stem cell research. She was one of 58 senators who signed a letter to President George W. Bush with the intent to loosen the federal restrictions on embryonic stem cell research. She is also a proponent of gun control.
Feinstein is currently a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She serves on the following U.S. Senate Committees: Appropriations, Rules and Administration, Intelligence, Judiciary, and Energy and National Resources. She is the only woman on the Judiciary Committee. She is the ranking member of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security. | 
