[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 159 (Friday, September 29, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4806-S4808]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          LEGISLATIVE SESSION

                                 ______
                                 

    SECURING GROWTH AND ROBUST LEADERSHIP IN AMERICAN AVIATION ACT--
                               Continued

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
resume consideration of H.R. 3935, which the clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (H.R. 3935) to amend title 49, United States Code, 
     to reauthorize and improve the Federal Aviation 
     Administration and other civil aviation programs, and for 
     other purposes.

  Pending:

       Schumer (for Murray) amendment No. 1292, in the nature of a 
     substitute.
       Schumer amendment No. 1293 (to amendment No. 1292), to add 
     an effective date.
       Schumer motion to commit the bill to the Committee on 
     Commerce, Science, and Transportation, with instructions, 
     Schumer amendment No. 1294, to add an effective date.
       Schumer amendment No. 1295 (to (the instructions) amendment 
     No. 1294), to modify the effective date.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.


                      Remembering Dianne Feinstein

  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, I join my colleagues on the floor this 
morning to pay tribute to Senator Feinstein and to remember her warmth, 
her generosity, her kindness, and the way she really loved to elevate 
women. It didn't matter what your party was; it didn't matter where you 
came from; when you achieved, she loved to recognize that.
  As I came to the Senate from the House and in being the first female 
from Tennessee to serve in the U.S. Senate, she talked about the 
likeness of that experience for her as breaking barriers and being the 
first female mayor of San Francisco and being the first woman from 
California to hold a seat in the U.S. Senate. So I always appreciated 
that she pushed forward with elevating women and encouraging women.
  Of course, as we all know, she loved to gather the women of the 
Senate together for dinner or for a photo to make certain that we 
recorded our gains here in the Senate and that we had a place to share 
our stories of what we were experiencing, because we all know there 
were times that she had incurred different unkind words from people who 
thought that she should not be in that position. So we appreciated that 
of her.
  I really enjoyed the opportunity to work with her on the Senate 
Judiciary

[[Page S4807]]

Committee. She and I spent quite a bit of time working on issues that 
pertained to our Nation's creative community. This was a community that 
she truly celebrated. She loved the fact that people could create a 
song out of a thought or a few words that they heard.
  We worked together to protect those rights, the entertainers, and to 
make certain that, as we worked on the HITS Act, as we worked on 
intellectual property issues, that our innovators and our creators were 
going to have that constitutional right protected to benefit from those 
creations.
  We all know--and I know many of my colleagues have mentioned today--
of her fondness for the Senate and for the institution. We will 
remember that as we wish her family well and wish them protection 
during this time of loss and sadness.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I come to the floor this morning to reflect 
on and remember a dear friend and colleague, someone who served this 
Nation in this body for 30 years, someone who has already been 
remembered by many others as a trailblazer, someone who left a lasting 
one on this Senate, on her State of California, on our Nation.
  When I first came to this Senate, now 13 years ago, Senator Feinstein 
was someone whose career I had long followed and long admired. She was 
elected to this body when I was a law student, in the Year of the 
Woman, when, following a contentious hearing, there was a concerted 
effort made to recruit some of the strongest, most capable potential 
candidates to join this body, and Senator Feinstein was certainly among 
those incredible leaders.
  I had the honor, the blessing, of being in small rooms in 
negotiations with her within my first few years, and I saw behind the 
scenes what anyone who followed her publicly got to know about Senator 
Feinstein. She was tough. She was fierce. She was determined. She was 
prepared. She had always done the reading. She studied the details of 
every bill, every piece of legislation, everything we voted on.
  When I had the chance to join the Appropriations Committee, and I 
approached her once here on the floor to ask her consent to amend the 
Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee bill she was floor 
managing, she turned, stopped, and said: Are you asking my permission 
to file an amendment to my bill?
  And somewhat haltingly, being still a very junior Senator, I said: 
Yes, ma'am, that is exactly what I am doing.
  She smiled and laughed and said: Oh, aren't you nice.
  I said: Doesn't every Senator ask your permission before they attempt 
to amend your bill?
  She goes: No, they no longer do. But they should.
  She was always dressed to the nines. She was always gracious and 
dignified. She exuded a quiet power that in critical moments in the 
history of this institution and our Nation, our country and world got 
to see: the chair of the Intelligence Committee, determined to make 
public a tectonic struggle between this body and its role and the 
history of interrogation techniques that she and many of us concluded 
were inappropriate and broke the boundaries, determined to defend the 
prerogatives of the Senate, even in a very difficult and charged 
environment.
  Given her early experience in San Francisco and the tragedy that 
brought her from council president to mayor, she was a focused, 
persistent, and effective advocate for gun safety.
  My friend and predecessor in this seat--now our President--President 
Joe Biden, served alongside Senator Feinstein for many, many years. 
Together, they worked hard to advance the Violence Against Women Act, 
the assault weapons ban, and dozens of other pieces of important 
legislation to help make our country more equitable, more inclusive, 
safer, and more just.
  I was reflecting this morning, when I got the hard news about 
Dianne's passing last night, on the very first time I met her. I was a 
young man. I was just a year out of law school. I was living and 
working in New York City for the I Have A Dream Foundation, and I 
happened to have a car. A friend, who I think was working for Mayor 
Dinkins, called and asked if I would drive out to Teterboro Airport and 
pick up Senator Feinstein of California. I couldn't believe my luck, as 
a young man in his early twenties, to get a chance to speak for even a 
moment or two to a U.S. Senator.
  I drove out there and was sure to be on time and waited diligently. I 
had been told by some of the campaign staff to not expect that she 
would even speak to me.
  She insisted on sitting in the front seat next to me, and we chatted 
for almost an hour and a half as we made our way back into downtown 
Manhattan in heavy traffic. I had the chance to listen to then-new 
Senator Feinstein talk about her experience as mayor, make observations 
about how the city of New York was being run and what the issues were, 
and then to ask her a few questions about public service, about what 
motivated her, about why she worked so hard. As a very young man, that 
experience, that conversation stayed with me for years.
  When I first came to this body and had a chance to sit near her on 
this floor and to serve down the dais from her on Judiciary, I 
approached her and repeated that story.
  She said: Young man, what I want you to remember is that every time 
you have a chance--whether with a page or an intern, with a campaign 
volunteer--you also have the opportunity and the obligation to remind 
them whom we serve and why we serve.
  Senator Feinstein was a giant here. She showed what public service 
means. She was determined. She was capable. She was dedicated.
  Her last vote was yesterday. I cannot imagine the loss that her 
family and staff are feeling, the enormous gap this will leave for the 
State of California and for this institution today and into the future 
as we mark, as we mourn the passing of this incredible trailblazer and 
as we prayerfully reflect on her incredible legacy.
  Thank you, Dianne, for your decades of loyal and loving service to 
this, our great Nation.
  With that, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be 
permitted to complete my remarks prior to the scheduled vote.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I join my colleagues in mourning the 
passing of a great and good colleague, someone we knew not only as a 
fellow worker here and a colleague but also as a friend.
  Every one of us had a personal connection to Dianne Feinstein. She 
had no enemies. She had adversaries, she differed, but she could differ 
and disagree without being disagreeable, as the saying goes. She 
established personal connections with all of us over her many years of 
service.
  I have listened to my colleagues on the floor this morning, and 
coming through to me is not only a sense of pain in her passing but 
also joy in knowing her.
  What strikes me is that she leaves a legacy--yes, a legacy--in 
legislation, in good works in California that impacted people's lives 
there, but her real legacy is people. Her legacy is the people who 
regard her as a role model, the people who were inspired to follow her 
into public service, the people who stood up and spoke out--and often 
it was truth to power as she did--because she was there. She blazed the 
trail. She showed how to do it.
  I first became aware of Dianne Feinstein in the early 1990s as a 
newly elected State attorney general, advocating for an assault weapons 
ban in the State of Connecticut--the early 1990s, and she was doing it 
at the Federal level. Connecticut and the Congress did it together.

[[Page S4808]]

  Then I defended our Connecticut law in the Connecticut courts with 
many of the same arguments that we used to challenge Federal law.
  She stood alone in those days as an advocate and a champion of gun 
violence prevention, and she modeled the curve that has led to the 
modern movement of gun violence prevention. And it is a movement now 
because she knew it would require the American people to be as outraged 
as she was and saddened by the death that she personally witnessed in 
San Francisco. And she would often recall it in very personal terms.
  For her, all of these causes were personal. Her service and her 
helping people were personal. And she understood that service and 
results, accomplishments, required that we be bipartisan, that we work 
across the aisle, that we work with people who disagreed with us and 
try to find common ground. That is what she did relentlessly and 
tirelessly.
  So her service, her grace, her generosity, her sensitivity, her 
caring will continue in the people that are her legacy, in the people 
who will and should, always, preserve her memory as a motivation for 
continued service.
  I am proud to have been her friend as well as her colleague, and I 
will always treasure the great and good model and mentorship that she 
provided for so many of us, as we go through these next days of grief 
and pain but also joy in knowing her.
  I yield the floor.

                          ____________________