Dianne Feinstein should be remembered for her full range of positions: good and bad

The senator was sometimes brave and ahead of her time, and sometimes stifled by the desire to not make waves

Flags are at half mast in San Francisco's city hall for a woman who was born here and died in Washington DC at the end of a remarkable life. It was inside that building that the most dramatic and pivotal event of Dianne Feinstein's political career took place, when a murderer made her mayor, the mayor who would become one of the country's strongest leaders in response to the Aids crisis. That role gave her the visibility to run for the US senate in 1992, and she held onto that seat to her dying day, showing up on Thursday to cast a vote in the budget battle, hours before her death at 90.

Senator Feinstein began her political career being ahead of her society and ended it by being behind it. This is not surprising for a public life in politics that stretched through 60 years of dramatic social and political change. But it may be hard to perceive for those who don't know she was early on a champion for women's rights - including her own just to participate, at a time when that was groundbreaking - and for rights and recognition for queer people at a time when most politicians would only mention them to demand punishment and ostracization for them.

Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist. She is the author of Orwell's Roses and co-editor with Thelma Young Lutunatabua of the climate anthology Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility