Background and career
Barbara Sue Boxer (née Levy; born November 11, 1940) is a retired American politician, lobbyist, and former reporter who served in the United States Senate, representing California from 1993 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, she served as the U.S. representative for California's 6th congressional district from 1983 until 1993. Born in Brooklyn, New York City, Boxer graduated from George W. Wingate High School and Brooklyn College. She worked as a stockbroker for several years before moving to California with her husband. During the 1970s, she worked as a journalist for the Pacific Sun and as an aide to U.S. Representative John L. Burton. She served on the Marin County Board of Supervisors for six years and became the board's first female president. With the slogan "Barbara Boxer Gives a Damn", she was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1982, representing California's 6th district. 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 then–California attorney general and future 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.
Barbara Sue Levy was born in Brooklyn, New York City, to Sophie (née Silvershein) and Ira Levy, a Jewish couple. She attended public schools and graduated 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.
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. In 1972, Boxer ran for a seat on the Marin County Board of Supervisors and lost to the incumbent Republican. 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.
Boxer, then a Marin County supervisor, was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1982, succeeding John Burton. Her slogan was "Barbara Boxer Gives a Damn". In the House, she represented California's 6th congressional district for five terms. 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. In 1992, Boxer was implicated in the House banking scandal, which revealed that more than 450 congressional representatives and aides, herself included, wrote overdraft checks covered by the House Bank's overdraft protection. In a statement, Boxer said, "In painful retrospect, I clearly should have paid more attention to my account". She wrote a $15 check to the Deficit Reduction Fund for each of her 87 overdrafts. In 1991, during the Anita Hill Senate hearings, where Hill accused U.S. Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment, Boxer led a group of women House members to the Senate Judiciary Committee, demanding that the all-white, all-male Committee of Senators take Hill's charges seriously.
Four-term incumbent Democratic Senator Alan Cranston did not seek re-election in 1992. Boxer opted to run for Senate. In what was billed as the "Year of the Woman", Boxer beat fellow Rep. Mel Levine and Lieutenant Governor Leo McCarthy in the Democratic primary, winning 44% of the vote. In the general election, Boxer defeated Republican Bruce Herschensohn by 4.9%. A last-minute revelation that Herschensohn had patronized a strip club at least partially affected the outcome. In 1998, Boxer won a second term, beating sitting California State Treasurer Matt Fong by 10.1% of the vote. In 2004, after facing no primary opposition, Boxer defeated Republican candidate Bill Jones, the former California Secretary of State, by 20%. In 2010, Boxer defeated Republican candidate Carly Fiorina, former chief executive officer of Hewlett-Packard, by 10%. Boxer did not seek re-election in 2016.
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.
