The memorial will be held on the building’s front steps about 1 p.m. and is expected to bring a host of well-connected guests in addition to family and friends. It is closed to the public, but will be livestreamed here.
President Biden will speak via recorded remarks, while Vice President Kamala Harris is scheduled to deliver remarks in person. Others planning to speak at the memorial include Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), U.S. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, San Francisco Mayor London Breed and Feinstein’s granddaughter Eileen Mariano.
Feinstein — who died Friday at 90 — lay in state inside City Hall on Wednesday, when members of the public were encouraged to visit and sign a condolence book.
Feinstein had represented California in the U.S. Senate since 1992, and much of her tremendous political legacy was won over the course of her three decades on Capitol Hill.
Still, she always called San Francisco home.
It was here where she first entered local politics by winning a seat on the Board of Supervisors in 1969, and here where she was catapulted onto the national political stage in 1978 when Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk were assassinated and she was elevated from board president to mayor.
She was the first woman in city history to serve as mayor, and did so for 10 years, until 1988. Many residents still remember her as much for her local contributions, like helping to save the city’s streetcars, as her national ones, like her work passing a federal assault weapons ban in 1994.
Feinstein never stopped pestering her successors at City Hall about municipal issues big and small, to their amusement and consternation.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has appointed longtime labor leader Laphonza Butler to fill Feinstein’s seat in the Senate until the next election.