Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), like many other lawmakers, is today remembering Sen. Dianne Feinstein. The prototypical glass-ceiling smasher whose political career spanned half a century, Feinstein died this week at age 90, still controversially holding onto her Senate seat despite health issues that prevented her from broadly fulfilling her duties.
Unlike many others praising Feinstein’s achievements, Murphy doesn’t cast his gaze back to Feinstein becoming San Francisco’s first female mayor or to the many other seminal political roles she played on her dynamic rise up the ranks.
Murphy instead chose to celebrate Feinstein at work, amplifying a post by Wall Street Journal reporter Dustin Volz testifying to a powerful moment of accountability in American history — when Feinstein gave the speech below “following the release of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s torture report.”
Will always remember this speech Feinstein gave following the release of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s torture report. She fought the CIA, the Obama White House and Republicans in Congress to ensure its release despite the many obstacles. And she won https://t.co/QovaDBSijq
— Dustin Volz (@dnvolz) September 29, 2023
Volz writes: “She fought the CIA, the Obama White House and Republicans in Congress to ensure its release despite the many obstacles. And she won.”
Murphy also praised Feinstein in his own words, commending her uphill work for gun control, calling the late Senator “a lonely voice fighting against gun violence.” As shown below in the Senate, the voice may have been lonely, but it was not quiet.
RIP Senator Feinstein pic.twitter.com/2r4wgoZeCk
— Keith Nagy (@nagy_minaj) September 29, 2023
The experience with firearms she references about above led Feinstein to be out in front of legislation to control what has become an American epidemic of mass shootings, especially with enhanced high-powered fast-firing weapons. The bullet hole she put her finger in had riddled the body of assassinated San Francisco Mayor George Moscone, murdered in 1978 with Supervisor Harvey Milk.
From 1994, when she passed the Assault Weapons Ban as a first term Senator, until the tragedy in Newtown, Dianne Feinstein was a lonely voice fighting against gun violence.
— Chris Murphy 🟧 (@ChrisMurphyCT) September 29, 2023
The modern anti-gun violence movement, now stronger than the gun lobby, would not exist but for Dianne.
Feinstein’s speech on the exposure of the American torture is in full is below.
