The California US senator Dianne Feinstein, 90, was hospitalized on Tuesday evening after suffering a fall in her home, a spokesperson said.
“Senator Feinstein briefly went to the hospital yesterday afternoon as a precaution after a minor fall in her home,” a spokesperson said in a statement. “All of her scans were clear and she returned home.”
TMZ first reported the news. The Feinstein spokesperson, Adam Russell, then told the San Francisco Chronicle the senator was only in hospital for “an hour or two”.
At 90, Feinstein is the oldest serving US senator. She has said she will retire at the end of her term next year. Three Democratic House colleagues are competing in the race to succeed her. Former Trump impeachment manager Adam Schiff is facing off against the longtime progressive, anti-war congresswoman Barbara Lee and the rising star and consumer protection crusader Katie Porter.
But continued health problems have stoked calls for Feinstein to step aside sooner.
Earlier this year, Feinstein was absent from Congress for nearly three months while recovering from shingles. During her hospitalization, some progressive House Democrats publicly called on her to resign, saying she had grounded the push to confirm Joe Biden’s judicial nominees. Leading Democrats, including Biden and the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, publicly stood beside her.
Since her return, Feinstein has at times appeared frail and confused. The Chronicle said Feinstein had been due to attend an event celebrating San Francisco’s cable cars on 2 August, but had missed it after developing a cough.
The first woman to be mayor of San Francisco, Feinstein was elected to the US Senate in 1992. As a senator, she led the effort to pass a landmark 1994 assault weapons ban. Between 2017 and 2021, she led Democrats on the judiciary committee, where she helmed a landmark investigation into the CIA’s detention and interrogation program.
Feinstein’s health challenges have renewed attention on the age and health concerns of some of the US’s most prominent politicians and fueled debates about age limits for members of Congress.
The 81-year-old Republican leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, has suffered a number of falls and last month froze during remarks to reporters, prompting both expressions of concern and calls for him to step down.
At an event in Kentucky on Saturday, McConnell was heckled with calls of “Retire!”
The two candidates expected to contest the presidential election next year, the Democratic president, Joe Biden, and the former Republican president Donald Trump, are 80 and 77 respectively.
But Feinstein’s age and health problems – side effects of shingles include encephalitis, or swelling of the brain – came into sharp focus when she was absent from Congress, given the need for her vote on judicial nominations.
Some observers said calls for her to retire were ageist and sexist, and would not have been aimed at the likes of Chuck Grassley, the 89-year-old Iowa Republican who also sits on the judiciary committee.
Rejecting such claims, the Vanity Fair columnist and politics podcaster Molly Jong-Fast said Feinstein was “fundamentally … a public servant, there to serve the public. And this idea that somehow because she’s a woman or because she’s older that she should be immune from [calls to quit] is really ridiculous”.
Feinstein has defended her ability to perform her job, though her office said in May that she was still experiencing vision and balance impairments from the shingles virus.
If Feinstein resigns before the 2024 election, Gavin Newsom, the California governor, would name her replacement, potentially reordering the race to succeed her. The governor said in 2021 that he would nominate a Black woman to fill the seat if Feinstein were to step aside.
Reuters contributed reporting
