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Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer is used to going against the tide. In high school she and another girl took on the task of coaching the boy’s baseball team. In college she chose to major in economics and minor in political science, rather than education like most of her women classmates. Upon graduating from college she entered a male-dominated field in which she was denied opportunities based solely on her gender. She opposed the war in Vietnam and marched with her family in rallies and peace parades. She lost her first election largely due to criticism that she could not be both a mother and an elected official, but went on to represent California in both the US House of Representatives and the Senate. In politics, where it is often necessary to go along in order to get along, Boxer managed to not only to get along, but also to get ahead.

Early Life and Education
Boxer was born Barbara Levy on November 11, 1940 in Brooklyn, New York. Though her parents were Jewish immigrants, they provided a typical American childhood for their daughter. She was a student in the public schools of Brooklyn, and went on to attend Brooklyn College. In her senior year, she married a fellow student, Stewart Boxer, and graduated in 1962 with a Bachelors degree in economics. She sought a job in the financial district of New York City while her husband attended law school at Fordham University. Boxer applied for stockbroker training programs in several Wall Street brokerage firms, but in the early sixties, a woman seeking a job selling securities was completely unheard of. Unwilling to give up on a career in the financial industry, Boxer took a job as a secretary. She continued to train on her own time for the stockbrokers license exam and soon earned her brokers license.

In 1965, Boxer and her husband moved to California. The couple was expecting their first child and wanted to move to an area where housing was more affordable. Boxer gave birth to her daughter the day after she arrived in California, and in 1967 the couple added a second child to their family, and settled in Greenbrae, in Marin County. The turbulent climate of the late sixties made Boxer realize that although she was a young suburban mother, she was not content to focus on her family to the exclusion of the world around her. The Vietnam War and the assassination of both John and Robert Kennedy prompted her desire to become involved in politics.

Political Career
Since her children were still young, Boxer chose to participate in several local associations in her spare time, rather than going back to work full time. Her priorities were education, the environment and the anti-war movement. Her work placed her in contact with many local political figures in Marin County and got her noticed as a hardworking and dedicated activist. In 1971, she decided to run for public office, campaigning for a seat on the Marin County Board of Supervisors. It was the first time in almost twenty years that a female candidate had made it past the primary. Even though her qualifications and experience made her a serious contender, she lost the election by a very small margin the following November. Talking with voters during the election and afterwards, it became apparent to Boxer that her candidacy was not successful because of voters’ perception that a young mother should be at home with her children rather than on the campaign trail.

Even though her first foray into politics had not been entirely successful, Boxer was not one to give up. She went back to work, taking a job as a journalist and associate editor with the “Pacific Sun” newspaper. Boxer left the paper in 1974 and took a position as a congressional aide to Congressman John Burton. During the two years she spent working for Burton, Boxer learned a great deal about politics. Armed with this new insight and a campaign strategy that emphasized her qualifications and experience rather than her private life, she ran again for the Marin County Board of Supervisors, and this time her campaign was a success. She sat on the board between 1976 and 1981, and was elected president of the board, the first woman to hold such a position, in 1980.

In 1982, Boxer benefited from the re-apportioning of California’s congressional districts, since her new district was larger and included mostly Democrats. Her former employer, John Burton, was favored to win re-election but instead to chose to retire. He endorsed Boxer for his vacant seat, and she was elected to the House of Representatives.

Congresswoman
When she arrived in Congress, Boxer encountered some of the same obstacles as she had in her early days on Wall Street. Thomas “Tip” O’Neill, then Speaker of the House, referred to the “men in Congress” during a speech and Boxer asked him if he would include women in such statements in the future. Boxer concentrated on the same issues in both local and national politics, including the environment, defense spending and women’s issues. In 1987, she lobbied for government procurement reforms, citing a coffeepot the Defense Department had purchased for $7,600 and a toilet seat that had cost $600.

While Boxer had accomplished many of her goals in Congress, her most defining moment in her career as a congresswoman came in 1991, during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. She led a group of fellow female representatives to the Senate and asked to be admitted and heard before the committee. They were refused entrance and told that “strangers” were not permitted to attend meetings of the Judiciary Committee. She would later use this anecdote as the basis for the title of her book “Strangers in the Senate” which detailed her life as a woman in politics.

Stranger in the Senate
Boxer served ten years in the House, and each re-election came with relative ease. In 1992, an opportunity for advancement arose, and she left the relative safety of the House of Representatives to campaign for the Senate seat being vacated by Senator Alan Cranston. She was not favored to win, especially since San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein was seeking California’s other Senate post. The odds that a state as large and diverse as California would send two Jewish women from the Bay Area to represent them in the Senate were astronomical. However, that is exactly what happened. Feinstein and Boxer teamed up for parts of the campaign, with Feinstein asking supporters to make contributions to Boxer’s campaign, which needed the money more than her own. In political circles, 1992 became known as “The Year of the Woman,” and Boxer’s campaign centered largely on the lack of women in the Senate, and the importance of having more women in positions of power.

As she had done when first elected to Congress, Boxer continued to make the issues that she spoke about during the campaign the issues she worked on after the campaign. She was a co-sponsor of the Family Medical Leave Act, the Freedom of Choice Act and the Children’s Environmental Protection Act. She prevented a plan to dispose of radioactive waste in the California desert and lobbied for the protection of California wetlands.

Her reelection in 1998 was not as close a contest as it had been in previous years, but it was still hard going. At the time, President Bill Clinton was embroiled in the Monica Lewinsky scandal, and Boxer’s opponent Matt Fong criticized her as an extreme liberal and a Clinton insider. She countered with a series of last minute ads attacking Fong’s conservative right wing views. When the votes were tallied, Boxer won the election by ten points, doubling her margin of victory in the previous election. Boxer was reelected again in 2004.

When the Senate is not in session Barbara Boxer lives in Greenbrae California, with her husband Stewart. The couple has two grown daughters and one grandchild.
By: Kim, Brenda, Our States: California, 2006