Barbara Boxer facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Barbara Boxer
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Official portrait, 2005
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| United States Senator from California |
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| In office January 3, 1993 – January 3, 2017 |
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| Preceded by | Alan Cranston |
| Succeeded by | Kamala Harris |
| Ranking Member of the Senate Environment Committee | |
| In office January 3, 2015 – January 3, 2017 |
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| Preceded by | David Vitter |
| Succeeded by | Tom Carper |
| Chair of the Senate Environment Committee | |
| In office January 3, 2007 – January 3, 2015 |
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| Preceded by | Jim Inhofe |
| Succeeded by | Jim Inhofe |
| Chair of the Senate Ethics Committee | |
| In office January 3, 2007 – January 3, 2015 |
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| Preceded by | George Voinovich |
| Succeeded by | Johnny Isakson |
| Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from California's 6th district |
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| In office January 3, 1983 – January 3, 1993 |
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| Preceded by | Phillip Burton |
| Succeeded by | Lynn Woolsey |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Barbara Sue Levy
November 11, 1940 New York City, U.S. |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouse |
Stewart Boxer
(m. 1962) |
| Children | 2 |
| Education | Brooklyn College (BA) |
| Website | (Archived) |
Barbara Sue Boxer (née Levy; born November 11, 1940) is an American politician and lobbyist who served in the United States Senate, representing California from 1993 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, she previously served as the U.S. representative for California's 6th congressional district from 1983 until 1993.
Contents
Early life, family, and education
Barbara Sue Levy was born in Brooklyn, New York City, to Sophie (née Silvershein) and Ira Levy, a Jewish couple. She attended public schools, graduating from George W. Wingate High School in 1958.
In 1962, she married Stewart Boxer and graduated from Brooklyn College with a bachelor's degree in economics. Barbara and Stewart Boxer moved to California in 1965.
Early career
Boxer worked as a stockbroker in the early 1960s while her husband went to law school. In 1968, after relocating to California, she worked on the presidential primary campaign of antiwar challenger Eugene McCarthy. In 1970, she co-founded the anti-Vietnam War Marin Alliance.
Boxer first ran for political office in 1972, when she challenged incumbent Republican Peter Arrigoni, a member of the Marin County Board of Supervisors, but lost a close election. From 1972 to 1974, Boxer worked as a reporter and editor for the Pacific Sun. She then managed the Marin campaign of John Burton, the brother of Phillip Burton, who then was the Congressman representing southern San Francisco, California. John Burton intended to run against incumbent Republican District 6 Congressman William S. Mailliard from Belvedere, California. The district would be renumbered as the 5th District in January 1975. However, Mailliard resigned on March 5, 1974, so John Burton also ran in the special election to fill the remainder of the incumbent's 6th District term. Burton narrowly won both crowded races and was sworn into office in 1974, and Boxer became his staff aide.
In 1976, Boxer was elected to the Marin County Board of Supervisors, serving for six years. She was the board's first female president.
U.S. Representative
Boxer was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1982, succeeding John Burton. She narrowly won her first election with 52 percent of the vote, but easily won re-election in her subsequent races.
Boxer was a member of the original Select Committee on Children, Youth, and Families that was established in 1983. She sat on the Armed Services committee throughout her tenure in the House.
U.S. Senator
Boxer won the 1992 election for the U.S. Senate. Running for a third term in 2004, she received 6.96 million votes, becoming the first person to ever get more than 6 million votes in a Senate election and set a record for the most votes in any U.S. Senate election in history, until her colleague, Dianne Feinstein, the senior senator from California, surpassed that number in her 2012 re-election. Boxer and Feinstein were the first female pair of U.S. Senators representing any state at the same time. Boxer was the ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee and the vice chair of the Select Committee on Ethics. She was also the Democratic Chief Deputy Whip. Boxer is known for her liberal perspectives.
Boxer did not seek re-election in 2016. She was succeeded by former California Attorney General and current Vice President Kamala Harris. In January 2020, Boxer joined Washington, D.C.-based lobbying firm Mercury Public Affairs as co-chairwoman. In January 2021, it was reported that Boxer was working as registered foreign agent for Hikvision, a Chinese state-sponsored surveillance company implicated in human rights abuses. After initially defending her work for Hikvision, Boxer reversed course and deregistered as a foreign agent. In October 2021, Boxer and others led a high-profile mass exodus of employees from Mercury's California office to form their own public affairs and consulting company.
Committees
- Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation
- Subcommittee on Aviation Operations, Safety, and Security
- Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Insurance
- Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast Guard
- Subcommittee on Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine Infrastructure, Safety, and Security
- Subcommittee on Science and Space
- Committee on Environment and Public Works (Ranking Member)
- Committee on Foreign Relations
- Subcommittee on Near Eastern and South and Central Asian Affairs
- Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs
- Subcommittee on International Operations and Organizations, Human Rights, Democracy and Global Women's Issues (Chair)
- Subcommittee on International Development and Foreign Assistance, Economic Affairs, and International Environmental Protection
- Select Committee on Ethics (Vice Chair)
A member of the Senate Democratic Leadership, Boxer served as the Democratic Chief Deputy Whip, which gave her the job of lining up votes on key legislation.
Caucus memberships
- Senate Oceans Caucus
- Senate Ukraine Caucus
Post-Senate career
After leaving the U.S. Senate, Boxer has given paid speeches; raised money for her political action committee (PAC for Change); hosted a weekly podcast with her daughter, Nicole Boxer; and worked as a lobbyist.
In April 2017, Boxer served as the keynote speaker for the Environmental Student Assembly's Earth Month at the University of Southern California.
Economy
On October 1, 2008, Boxer voted for the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act.
On August 26, 2013, Boxer told The Ed Show on MSNBC that the federal minimum wage should be raised to $10.00 an hour.
Education
Boxer established the Excellence in Education award to recognize teachers, parents, businesses and organizations working to make positive changes in education. Beginning in 1997, Boxer pesented the Excellence in Education Award to 38 recipients.
Election and Electoral College reform
Boxer voted for the 2002 Help America Vote Act, which mandated the use of voting machines across the country, among other provisions. On February 18, 2005, Boxer and others introduced the Count Every Vote Act of 2005, which would have provided a voter-verified paper ballot for every vote cast in electronic voting machines and ensured access to voter verification for all citizens. The bill did not pass.
Boxer introduced a bill on November 15, 2016, calling for a constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College and to select future presidents by a simple national vote only. This bill was introduced six days after Donald Trump won the 2016 election despite losing the national popular vote to Hillary Clinton.
Energy
Boxer opposed the nuclear energy deal between the United States and India. She believed that India should not receive aid from the U.S. in the civilian nuclear energy sector until it broke its relationship with Iran.
Environment
Boxer successfully led the 2003 Senate floor battle to block oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. In 2005, Boxer voted again to block oil drilling at ANWR.
Boxer introduced the National Oceans Protection Act (NOPA) of 2005.
Boxer was an original cosponsor of Senator Jim Jeffords' (I-VT) Clean Power Act.
Boxer was the Senate sponsor of the Northern California Coastal Wild Heritage Wilderness Act, which was signed into law by President George W. Bush on October 17, 2006. The bill protected 275,830 acres (1,116 km2) of federal land as wilderness and 21 miles (34 km) of stream as a wild and scenic river, including such popular areas as the King Range and Cache Creek.
Boxer, along with her colleague Dianne Feinstein, voted in favor of subsidy payments to conventional commodity farm producers at the cost of subsidies for conservation-oriented farming.
Foreign policy
In 1997, the Senate passed a Boxer resolution calling on the United States not to recognize the Taliban as the official government of Afghanistan because of its human rights abuses against women.
She voted against the first Gulf War while a member of the House in 1991.
In 2012, Boxer and a bipartisan group of six senators introduced a resolution condemning Russia for aiding Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government as the country faced civil war.
Iraq War
In October 2002, Boxer voted against the joint resolution passed by the US Congress to authorize the use of military force by the Bush Administration against Iraq.
In June 2005, Senators Boxer and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, cosponsored Senate Resolution 171 calling for a timeframe for US troop withdrawal from Iraq.
In 2005, Boxer criticized Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's judgment in relation to the war in Iraq: "I personally believe – this is my personal view – that your loyalty to the mission you were given, to sell the war, overwhelmed your respect for the truth."
Boxer was sharply critical of US Army General David Petraeus' testimony regarding the political and military situation of Iraq in 2007, charging him with reporting while wearing "rosy glasses".
In January 2007, Boxer was in the news for comments she made when responding to Bush's plans to send an additional 20,000 troops to Iraq. "Who pays the price?" Boxer asked Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. "I'm not going to pay a personal price. My kids are too old and my grandchild is too young. You're not going to pay a personal price with an immediate family. So who pays the price? The American military and their families... not me, not you." When Rice interjected, Boxer responded by saying, "Madam Secretary, please. I know you feel terrible about it. That's not the point. I was making the case as to who pays the price for your decisions. And the fact that this administration would move forward with this escalation with no clue as to the further price that we're going to pay militarily... I find really appalling."
Gun laws
Senator Boxer joined colleagues to pass a federal ban on various semi-automatic firearms and established the COPS program.
Health care
Boxer was part of a coalition to increase medical research to find cures for diseases. In 2007, she authored successful bipartisan legislation with Senator Gordon Smith to combat HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis globally. In 1997, she authored a Patients' Bill of Rights. She has written a bill to make health insurance tax-deductible and a bill to allow any American buy into the same health insurance program that members of Congress have. She supported comprehensive prescription drug coverage through Medicare and the right of all consumers to purchase lower-cost prescription drugs re-imported from Canada.
In October 2002, Boxer urged the Bush Administration to take specific steps to address the causes of the steep increase in autism cases in California.
Boxer advocated for embryonic stem-cell research, asserting that it has the potential to help those with diabetes, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, spinal cord injuries, and other diseases.
Intellectual property
Boxer supported PIPA.
LGBT rights
In 1996, Boxer was one of 14 Senators to vote against the Defense of Marriage Act. She also voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment in 2004 and 2006, although when San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom issued a directive to the city-county clerk to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, she stated that she supported California's domestic partnership law but believed that marriage was between a man and a woman. She opposed Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment that prohibited same-sex marriage in California, and supported the Uniting American Families Act.
During her 2010 campaign, Boxer stated her strong support for same-sex marriage.
Social Security
Boxer supported the then-current system of Social Security, and opposed President George W. Bush's plan for partial privatization of Social Security.
Surveillance
In June 2008, Boxer spoke in the Senate in opposition to the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, a pending bill in the United States Congress to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and later broke with her counterpart Dianne Feinstein and voted against it.
Books
Boxer's first novel, A Time to Run, was published in 2005 by San Francisco-based Chronicle Books. Her second novel, Blind Trust, was released in July 2009 by Chronicle Books.
Personal life
Barbara and Stewart Boxer had two children, Doug and Nicole. On May 28, 1994, Nicole Boxer married Tony Rodham, the younger brother of Hillary Clinton, in a ceremony at the White House attended by 250 guests. (This was the first White House wedding since Tricia Nixon married Edward Cox in 1971.) Before divorcing, Boxer and Rodham had a son, Zachary, in 1995.
In 2006, Barbara and Stewart Boxer sold their house in Greenbrae, California and moved to Rancho Mirage.
On July 26, 2021, Boxer was assaulted and robbed of her mobile phone in the Jack London Square section of Oakland, California. A $2,000 reward was offered for information leading to an arrest. Boxer was not seriously injured in the attack.
See also
In Spanish: Barbara Boxer para niños
- Women in the United States House of Representatives
- Women in the United States Senate
