Elected 1992, seat up 2000 Born: June 22, 1933, San Francisco Home: San Francisco Education: Stanford U., B.A. 1955 Religion: Jewish Marital Status: married (Richard C. Blum)

Career:

• Political: San Francisco Bd. of Supervisors, 1970-78, Pres., 1970-71, 1974-75, 1978; San Francisco Mayor, 1978-88.
• Professional: CA Women's Parole Bd., 1960-66.

DC Office: 331 HSOB 20510, 202-224-3841; Fax: 202-228-3954; Web site: www.senate.gov/~feinstein

State Offices: Fresno, 559-485-7430; Los Angeles,310-914-7300; San Diego,619-231-9712; San Francisco,415-536-6868.

Committees:

• Appropriations (12th of 13 D): Agriculture & Rural Development; Interior; Labor & HHS; Legislative Branch (RMM).
• Judiciary (5th of 8 D): Immigration; Technology, Terrorism & Government Information (RMM); Youth Violence.
• Rules & Administration (5th of 7 D).
• Joint Committee on Printing (4th of 5 Sens.).

Dianne Feinstein was elected in 1992 with the most votes cast for a senator in U.S. history. She grew up in San Francisco, in lush Presidio Heights, went to Stanford and later studied criminology. She was appointed by Governor Pat Brown to the women's parole board in 1960, at 27. In 1969 she was elected to the San Francisco County Board of Supervisors--the city's council--and twice ran for mayor and lost. As president of the board, she became mayor when Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk were murdered by former Supervisor Dan White; she discovered Moscone's body and showed steadiness and a sense of command that calmed the city. In 1984, Walter Mondale seriously considered her for vice president, but passed over her for Geraldine Ferraro because of qualms about the business dealings of her husband, Richard Blum. Feinstein presided gracefully that year over the Democratic National Convention in San Francisco--while Ferraro juggled questions about her family's business. In fact, Feinstein and Blum's investments have thrived; the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call estimated their net worth in 1999 at $50 million, the fifth highest in Congress.

Ineligible for a third full term in 1987, Feinstein ran for governor in 1990, won the Democratic primary impressively, then lost 49%-46% to Pete Wilson. When Wilson appointed Orange County state Senator John Seymour--an unknown and bland choice--to replace him in the Senate, Feinstein quickly announced for the seat, even though the 1992 race was for only the last two years of Wilson's term, and she could have run for the seat being vacated by Alan Cranston the same year. She had primary competition from Gray Davis, then state controller, who ran a spot against her campaign finance practices comparing her to Leona Helmsley; Feinstein won 58%-33%. In the general she faced appointed Senator John Seymour, who had just switched to pro-choice and anti-offshore oil drilling positions. Nothing worked for Seymour--not Feinstein's arguably tricky financing of her 1990 gubernatorial campaign (which resulted in a $190,000 fine), nor fears of immigration, nor Seymour's tending to agricultural interests. Feinstein won 54%-38%, coming close even in Seymour's southern California base.

California has a long tradition of having one senator who expresses ideological views and another who works hard to represent the state's economic interests. Feinstein chose the latter workhorse role, as did her predecessors Wilson, Cranston and Thomas Kuchel. She got a seat on Appropriations, where she could funnel money to California, and on Judiciary, where she was one of the women chosen by then-chairman Joseph Biden, who sought to spare himself the flak he got for allowing cross-examination of Anita Hill. Feinstein has a generally but not uniformly liberal voting record; she also has a tough, prosecutorial demeanor, and on the podium she can be one of the best speakers in American politics today. She has kept her distance from the Clinton Administration, negotiating for changes before voting for the 1993 budget, voting against NAFTA, withdrawing her support of the Clinton health care plan in May 1994, condemning Bill Clinton's ''I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky'' comment which she had witnessed in person.

In her first two years she had two major legislative achievements. One was the attachment of the assault weapons ban to the 1994 crime bill--good politics for her and many Democrats in metropolitan states, but a liability to Democrats in much of the West and South. When Idaho's Larry Craig argued that her definition of assault weapons was not rigorous enough and challenged her knowledge of firearms, she responded by saying: ''I know something about what firearms can do; I came to be mayor of San Francisco as a product of assassination.'' Her other major achievement was a California Desert Protection Act. Similar measures had been stymied by the state's Republican senators as too restrictive, but now that there was no Republican senator, Feinstein managed it through enactment. In October 1994, the retiring Republican Malcolm Wallop of Wyoming tried to kill the bill by end-of-session filibuster, but other senators, apparently sympathetic to Feinstein's case or her political plight, helped it to pass.

Feinstein surely hoped that she would face weak competition in 1994 and that her early and hard work raising money would enable her to win essentially unopposed. But then came Michael Huffington, with the determination and the cash to be the biggest spending Senate candidate ever. Texas-born, Huffington moved to Santa Barbara in 1991 and in 1992 beat an 18-year Republican congressman in the primary by spending over $3 million. He won the general election easily. Huffington started off with an ad in which he promoted William Bennett's The Book of Virtues, addressing Californians' sense of moral deficiency. Feinstein ran an ad accusing Huffington of refusing to act as an advocate for Raytheon in Congress, a company located in his district. This was political jujitsu, using her strength of constituency service to prove his claim that she was a ''career politician.'' Feinstein was clearly flustered and angry that a politician who had put in so little time and effort had pulled even with her in the polls by September, and that she could not count on heavily outspending him. Huffington's spending--nearly $30 million altogether--moved him even with Feinstein in September and October polls; when it was revealed that he and his wife employed an illegal alien as a nanny, his poll numbers went down. On the Thursday before the election, it was revealed that Feinstein, despite her earlier denials, had employed a woman whose work permit had expired. But the news media ran stories saying that federal officials cast doubt on whether the woman was an illegal. This alibi turned out to be false, but it probably made the difference; it is a sign of Democratic weakness in 1994 that Feinstein, for all her strength and achievements, was in such straits. Feinstein won 47%-45%, carrying the Bay Area 63%-30% and Los Angeles County 52%-40%, while losing the rest of southern California 56%-35% and the north outside the Bay Area 51%-40%.

In the minority for the first time in her career, Feinstein worked on anti-crime legislation, passing the Comprehensive Methamphetamine Control Act of 1996 and proposing a Federal Gang Violence Act (doubling penalties to gang members). She opposed the immigration bill until the Gallegly amendment, allowing states to exclude children of illegal immigrants from schools, was dropped. She opposed the Welfare Reform Act provisions cutting off aid to elderly legal immigrants, and sought in 1997 to repeal that provision. She sought to link trade ties to Mexico with changes in its drug enforcement. Toward China she was more friendly. When San Francisco and Shanghai became sister cities in 1979, Feinstein got to know Mayor Jiang Zemin, now president of China. Every year she strongly supports renewal of normal trade relations with China; she argues that trade is driving political change in China and that if trade ties are cut China will just withdraw and remain dictatorial. But her strong stand prompted her husband to give up any profits he makes on investments in China.

Feinstein co-sponsored the bill to ban denial of hospitalization for mastectomies. She opposed the McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill because it limits ideological PACs like EMILY's List, which gave her much support. With Republican Orrin Hatch, she promoted legislation to address gang violence and another to curb the practices of photographers who stalk celebrities; with Republican Jon Kyl she sponsored a constitutional amendment to give victims of crime fundamental rights. She sponsored the law that created the breast cancer stamp and raised millions for research. In September 1998 she sponsored a bill to prohibit human cloning.

In October 1997 Feinstein gave a speech stingingly criticizing California's public school system, spotlighting relatively low spending and dismal results, and calling for ''nothing short of a major restructuring,'' including an end to social promotion, longer school days and standards to measure each school's achievement. By some this was seen as a prelude to another run for governor in 1998, and December 1997 polls showed Feinstein to be the strongest Democratic competitor. For some weeks she considered it seriously, but in January 1998 she announced she would not run; the prospect of running a fourth statewide race in eight years and the presence of the free-spending Al Checchi and her 1992 nemesis Gray Davis were perhaps unappealing.

In December 1998, as the House was preparing to vote impeachment, Feinstein wrote a proposal to censure Clinton for ''immoral and reckless behavior.'' But it was never able to get the support of some Democrats who wanted Clinton let off scot-free or of some Republicans who believed that censure was extraconstitutional or that it provided Clinton an easy way out. When impeachment was defeated, she dropped the proposal for censure. At the same time, she was still working on California issues, successfully brokering a deal for Pacific Lumber to sell redwood groves in the Headwaters Forest on the north coast. She and Barbara Boxer shifted committee seats, giving Feinstein a seat on Appropriations where she could fund California projects during the last two years of her term. Predicting California Senate races is a tricky business: Feinstein won the 1994 race by less than almost anybody expected 18 months before, Boxer won the 1998 race by more. California Democrats' solid wins in 1998 and Feinstein's good poll ratings made her the heavy favorite, and no Republican has the statewide name identification to be a strong candidate initially.

Cook's Call:
Probably Safe. The enormous expense of running a credible, top-level statewide campaign in California has grown to the point that only the incredibly wealthy or the very best of fundraising candidates can seriously contemplate running, making it highly unlikely that Feinstein will have a difficult race. But she is not without her vulnerabilities. On the Republican side, Representative Tom Campbell, San Diego County Supervisor Bill Horn, state Sen. Ray Haynes and businessman J.P. Gough have announced. Despite his moderate stance on most issues, Campbell is best positioned to win the March 7 primary. There has been some speculation that Feinstein may get the nod as the vice presidential running mate; California law allows her to run for both offices.

Update: August 10, 2000
Cook's Call for this race has been updated. Please see the analysis above. The update below was made March 30, 2000.

Congressman Tom Campbell, a moderate Republican known for his independent stances, in October 1999 formed an exploratory committee to challenge Senator Diane Feinstein. A Field Poll at the time showed Feinstein leading him by 55%-30% with 15% undecided. Campbell officially declared his candidacy in November, and the stage seemed set for a showdown for the Republican nomination between Campbell and millionaire software entrepreneur Ron Unz, who lost the 1994 gubernatorial primary to Pete Wilson while spending $2 million of his own money. In 1998, Unz had bankrolled Proposition 227, an initiative to dismantle most of California's bilingual programs, which overwhelmingly passed. But Unz dropped out of the race just two weeks after Campbell entered, saying he would focus instead on his new campaign finance reform initiative, Proposition 25.

Unz said that after further assessment, he had a ''a very low probability'' of defeating Feinstein. As it turned out, Proposition 25 failed in the March 7, 2000, primary, winning approval from only 35% of voters, while Campbell easily defeated five Republican candidates, winning 56% of Republican votes while trouncing two credible conservatives: state Senator Ray Haynes, who won 22%; and San Diego County Supervisor Bill Horn, who won 15%. Campbell was encouraged that his margin of victory was larger than indicated by pre-election polls.

But Feinstein defeated Campbell 51%-23% overall in the open primary, a sign of the difficult contest he faces in November. A Los Angeles Times exit poll showed that Feinstein beat Campbell among every group of voters except Republicans and conservatives. But on the issues, Campbell fared far better than Feinstein among voters who viewed taxes as important, and could win more support after more widely advertising his pro-abortion rights and pro-gun control stands. One wild card in the race: If Vice President Al Gore selects Feinstein as his running mate, California law permits her to simultaneously seek both offices--a move Campbell believes would bolster his candidacy.

Group Ratings
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	CON	NTU	NFIB	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
1998	90	86	89	100	30	14	33	61	4	14	10
1997	85	--	67	--	36	32	--	50	4	--	--

National Journal Ratings
	1997 LIB	--	1997 CONS		1998 LIB	--	1998 CONS
Economic	67%	--	31%		65%	--	33%
Social	71%	--	0%		74%	--	0%
Foreign	62%	--	32%		73%	--	21%

Key Votes of the 105th Congress
1. Bal. Budget Amend. N 2. Clinton Budget Deal Y 3. Cloture on Tobacco Y 4. Education IRAs Y 5. Satcher for Surgeon Gen. Y 6. Highway Set-asides Y		7. Table Child Gun locks N  8. Ovrd. Part. Birth Veto N  9. Chem. Weapons Treaty Y 10. Cuban Humanitarian Aid Y 11. Table Bosnia Troops Y 12. $ for Test-ban Treaty Y

Election Results
1994 general	Dianne Feinstein (D)	3,977,063	(47%)
	Michael Huffington (R)	3,811,501	(45%)
	Other	714,500	(8%)
1994 primary	Dianne Feinstein (D)	1,635,837	(74%)
	Ted Andromidas (D)	297,128	(13%)
	Daniel O'Dowd (D)	271,615	(12%)
1992 general	Dianne Feinstein (D)	5,853,621	(54%)
	John Seymour (R)	4,093,488	(38%)
	Other	832,581	(8%)

Campaign Finance
1994	Receipts	Receipts from PACs	Expenditures
Dianne Feinstein (D)			$14,407,179
Michael Huffington (R)			$29,969,695