Senator Dianne Goldman Berman Feinstein is an American politician. She has been serving as the Senior United States Senator from California under the Democrats since 1992. She was also the Mayor of San Francisco from 1978 to 1988.
Dianne was born in San Francisco on June 22, 1933. She graduated from Covenant of the Sacred Heart High School in 1951. She proceeded to earn her B.A. in History at Stanford University in 1955.
Senator Dianne Feinstein started her political career at the San Francisco’s Coro Foundation from 1955 to 1956. She became the San Francisco Board of Supervisors president in 1978 after two unsuccessful attempts to become the Mayor. But, Feinstein became San Francisco’s city mayor after the assassination of Mayor Moscone.
After losing her governorship race in 1990, she won a special election to the U.S. Senate in 1992. Then, she became the first female U.S. Senator. This was after Pete Wilson resigned from the U.S. senate. She was re-elected five times in 1994, 2000, 2006, 2012, and 2018.
She has filed the initial Election Commission paperwork needed for re-election in 2024. She is California’s longest-serving Senator and oldest sitting senator at age 88.
You can find out more about the senator here.
Here’s our collection of the best Dianne Feinstein quotes.
Table of Contents
Dianne Feinstein Quotes on Politics/Power
I’ve passed on a number of bills. I’ve studied the Constitution myself. I am reasonably well educated.
Dianne Feinstein
Let the record show that you can be a United States senator for 21 years. You can be 79 years old. You can be the chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and one of the most recognizable and widely-respected veteran public servants in your nation. But if you are female while all of those things, men who you defeat in arguments will still respond to you by calling you hysterical and telling you to calm down. They’ll patronize you and say they admire your passion, ‘sweetie,’ but they deal in facts, not your silly, girly feelings. It’s inescapable. You can set your watch by it.
Dianne Feinstein
If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them… ‘Mr. and Mrs. America, turn ’em all in,’ I would have done it.
Dianne Feinstein
It is my hope that the number of stem cell lines available for federally-funded research will be expanded so that the government can continue to participate in this vital research and provide hope to the millions of Americans with diseases that might be cured.
Dianne Feinstein
I believe the Visa Waiver Program, it essentially is the soft underbelly of the visa system. Now we have 35 countries in it. We have 16 million people coming in. I believe the overstays still run about 40 percent of the undocumented population. In other words, there’s 40 percent that you really don’t know where it came from is what I’m trying to say. And I’ve always suspected people come in on a visitor’s visa and they just decide to stay, and that’s a large part of the undocumented population.
Dianne Feinstein
We cannot expect to keep our nation’s secrets secure – or provide meaningful oversight for our intelligence agencies – if proper classification of our country’s secrets is as likely as a coin flip.
Dianne Feinstein
As a former nine-year member of the Board of Supervisors and nine-year mayor, I know firsthand the merits of strong zoning laws. They protect residential areas so they can support families and be free of commercial activities that are not related to neighborhood needs.
Dianne Feinstein
We have no regulation of drones in the United States in their commercial use. You can see drones some day hovering over the homes of Hollywood luminaries, violating privacy. This question has to be addressed. And we need rules of operation on the border, by police, by commercial use, and also by military and intelligence use.
Dianne Feinstein
Let me say this: I believe closing Guantanamo is in our Nation’s national security interest. Guantanamo is used not only by al-Qaeda, but also by other nations, governments, and individuals – people good and bad – as a symbol of America’s abuse of Muslims, and it is fanning the flames of anti-Americanism around the world.
Dianne Feinstein
As a former nine-year member of the Board of Supervisors and nine-year mayor, I know firsthand the merits of strong zoning laws. They protect residential areas so they can support families and be free of commercial activities that are not related to neighborhood needs.
Dianne Feinstein
Gentlemen, as sure as I’m sitting here now, the result of continuation of a non-system, the ostrich-like head-in-the-sand attitude, the constant rejection of any efforts to solve this problem, will produce an Armageddon in the American population in those states where there is a big problem.
Dianne Feinstein
And in an issue with this kind of concern to a committee that bears the oversight responsibility, I think you can see that we’re very dismayed about it.
Dianne Feinstein
Torture goes against the very soul of our country. We are a democracy, established on the rule of law.
Dianne Feinstein
Dianne Feinstein Quotes on Economy
College costs continue to rise, and student loan debt threatens to price many Americans out of a college education and out of the middle class.
Dianne Feinstein
Tax reform shouldn’t add one penny to our deficit or to the tax bills of middle-class Americans.
Dianne Feinstein
It is my belief that tax credits only go to people who are making money, and they generally keep it.
Dianne Feinstein
Dianne Feinstein Quotes on Health
Today we have a health insurance industry where the first and foremost goal is to maximize profits for shareholders and CEOs, not to cover patients who have fallen ill or to compensate doctors and hospitals for their services. It is an industry that is increasingly concentrated and where Americans are paying more to receive less.
Dianne Feinstein
Rogue internet pharmacies continue to pose a serious threat to the health and safety of Americans. Simply put, a few unethical physicians and pharmacists have become drug suppliers to a nation.
Dianne Feinstein
I basically believe the medical insurance industry should be nonprofit, not profit-making. There is no way a health reform plan will work when it is implemented by an industry that seeks to return money to shareholders instead of using that money to provide health care.
Dianne Feinstein
It is my hope that the number of stem cell lines available for federally-funded research will be expanded so that the government can continue to participate in this vital research and provide hope to the millions of Americans with diseases that might be cured.
Dianne Feinstein
Dianne Feinstein Quotes on Security
Ports are the gaping hole in America’s homeland security.
Dianne Feinstein
Let me say this: I believe closing Guantanamo is in our Nation’s national security interest. Guantanamo is used not only by al-Qaida, but also by other nations, governments, and individuals – people good and bad – as a symbol of America’s abuse of Muslims, and it is fanning the flames of anti-Americanism around the world.
Dianne Feinstein
We have federal regulations and state laws that prohibit hunting ducks with more than three rounds. And yet it’s legal to hunt humans with 15-round, 30-round, even 150-round magazines.
Dianne Feinstein
All vets are mentally ill in some way and the government should prevent them from owning firearms.
Dianne Feinstein
And, I know the sense of helplessness that people feel. I know the urge to arm yourself because that’s what I did. I was trained in firearms. I’d walk to the hospital when my husband was sick. I carried a concealed weapon. I made the determination that if somebody was going to try to take me out, I was going to take them with me.
Dianne Feinstein
Banning guns addresses a fundamental right of all Americans to feel safe.
Dianne Feinstein
When the gunman realizes that nobody else is armed, he will lay down his weapons and turn himself in … that’s just human nature.
Dianne Feinstein
Instead of starting a new nuclear arms race, now is the time to reclaim our Nation’s position of leadership on nuclear nonproliferation efforts.
Dianne Feinstein
While the distance between the United States and Iraq is great, Saddam Hussein’s ability to use his chemical and biological weapons against us is not constrained by geography – it can be accomplished in a number of different ways – which is what makes this threat so real and persuasive.
Dianne Feinstein
The criteria for serving one’s country should be competence, courage and willingness to serve. When we deny people the chance to serve because of their sexual orientation, we deprive them of their rights of citizenship, and we deprive our armed forces the service of willing and capable Americans.
Dianne Feinstein
Our support for the assault weapons ban is very broad…I think we’ve got all the police, we have all the mayors virtually – the conference of mayors, mayors against guns. We have medical experts, we have virtually dozens of religious organizations of every creed supporting us. We have just lists and lists.
Dianne Feinstein
We have a chance to wind down and expedite the removal of 96 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons. What an achievement it would be, if at the end of the next administration, we could say that the nuclear arsenals of both Russia and the United States had been reduced to the barest minimums.
Dianne Feinstein
The National Guard fulfills the militia mentioned in the Second amendment. Citizens no longer need to protect the states or themselves.
Dianne Feinstein
Assault weapons pose a grave threat to all Americans, but most especially to law enforcement officers on our city streets.
Dianne Feinstein
I think the greatest threat to the privacy of Americans is the drone, and the use of the drone and the very few regulations that are on it today, and the booming industry of commercial drones.
Dianne Feinstein
After a disaster such as Hurricane Katrina, the federal government has a profound obligation to help those in need, .. Right now, the victims of Hurricane Katrina need our help. Entire communities have been destroyed. Families have been torn apart. Many are still missing. Tens of thousands remain homeless. As the recovery proceeds, we in the Senate pledge to do everything in our power to help rebuild the shattered lives across the Gulf Coast.
Dianne Feinstein
The National Guard fulfills the militia mentioned in the Second amendment. Citizens no longer need to protect the states or themselves.
Dianne Feinstein
What we’re going to see is the emergence of the lone wolf rather than the planning of large numbers of people to carry out large attacks…Explosives are getting more sophisticated.
Dianne Feinstein
It’s a myth that the border can’t be enforced. It can be enforced.
Dianne Feinstein
In the wake of 9/11, we were desperate to bring those responsible for the brutal attacks to justice. But even that urgency did not justify torture. The United States must be held to a higher standard than our enemies, yet some of our actions did not clear that bar.
Dianne Feinstein
Dianne Feinstein Quotes on Women/Gay Rights/LGBT/ Equality
Domestic violence causes far more pain than the visible marks of bruises and scars. It is devastating to be abused by someone that you love and think loves you in return. It is estimated that approximately 3 million incidents of domestic violence are reported each year in the United States.
Dianne Feinstein
And, I know the sense of helplessness that people feel. I know the urge to arm yourself because that’s what I did. I was trained in firearms. I’d walk to the hospital when my husband was sick. I carried a concealed weapon. I made the determination that if somebody was going to try to take me out, I was going to take them with me.
Dianne Feinstein
No Child Left Behind’ requires states and school districts to ensure that all students are learning and are reaching their highest potential. Special education students should not be left out of these accountability mechanisms.
Dianne Feinstein
Abortion, however, is a big threshold issue for me because the dominant majority of people in my state are pro-choice, .. I ran as a pro-choice Democrat, and she fills Sandra Day O’Connor’s shoes, and they are critical shoes.
Dianne Feinstein
The criteria for serving one’s country should be competence, courage and willingness to serve. When we deny people the chance to serve because of their sexual orientation, we deprive them of their rights of citizenship, and we deprive our armed forces the service of willing and capable Americans.
Dianne Feinstein
The time has come to repeal ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’ It is the right thing to do. Every American should have the opportunity to serve their country, regardless of race, sex, creed, or sexual orientation.
Dianne Feinstein
Domestic violence does not only happen to adults. Forty percent of girls age 14 to 17 report knowing someone their age who has been hit or beaten by a boyfriend, and approximately one in five female high school students reports being physically and sexually abused by a dating partner.
Dianne Feinstein
Women have begun to see that if I go through that doorway, I take everybody through it.
Dianne Feinstein
Heroism, I believe, is a trait that does not know race, color, creed, sex, or sexual orientation.
Dianne Feinstein
Dianne Feinstein Quotes on Environment
Our climate is changing. The Earth’s climate has, in fact, warmed by 1.1 to 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit since the industrial revolution. People look at this and say: Oh, that is not very much. In fact, it is very much, and it changes the dynamic. It impacts species. It kills some. It diminishes the carbon sink of the ocean. It does a number of things.
Dianne Feinstein
Global warming is real. It is happening today. It is being charted by our satellites. It is being charted by our scientists. It is being charted by those of us in this body, and I think the real key is if we are ready to admit that fact and take the action to make the necessary conversion.
Dianne Feinstein
Summary
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