Boxer won’t seek 2016 re-election

WASHINGTON – California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer’s departure from the Senate in 2016, announced Thursday, will conclude a 33-year congressional career defined by liberal causes and a buoyantly combative spirit.

Repeatedly successful in winning election, even as she has struggled to pass legislation, Boxer now has two more years to make her stand in a conservative-controlled Senate while a younger California political generation scrambles to replace her.

“I want to come home,” Boxer said Thursday in a video announcing a decision that she insisted should not be called a retirement. “I want to come home to the state that I love so much, California.”

The campaign arena could quickly fill with potential replacements, with Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, state Attorney General Kamala Harris and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa seen as possible Democratic contenders. Among Republicans, Fresno Mayor Ashley Swearengin and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have gained early mention, among others.

Boxer said in a Thursday afternoon conference call with reporters that it was “premature” for her to back any specific candidate, though she underscored her hopes for a “progressive” replacement. She said she announced her departure this early in the 2016 election cycle because “it’s only fair” to give candidates enough time to make their case.

President Barack Obama, who served alongside Boxer during his four years in the Senate, called his former colleague Thursday. In a statement, he described her as an “institution.”

“Thanks to Barbara,” Obama said, “more Americans breathe clean air and drink clean water. More women have access to health care. More children have safe places to go after school. More public lands have been protected for future generations. More Americans travel on safe roads and bridges. And more young women have been inspired to achieve their biggest dreams, having Barbara as an incredible role model.”

Starting her own congressional career in the House of Representatives in 1983, where she represented left-leaning Marin County, Boxer moved to the Senate in 1993.

On both sides of Capitol Hill, the 4-foot-11 Brooklyn native distinguished herself with feisty rhetoric, an unwavering commitment to women’s and environmental causes and a steady climb up the seniority ladder that eventually made her the first female chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

In 1983, her first year on Capitol Hill, the House had 22 female members. This Congress has 88. When she announced her initial Senate candidacy in 1990, for a seat up for election in 1992, the Senate had only two women. Boxer was among several women who won seats in that campaign, dubbed the “Year of the Woman.”

Now 74, Boxer is still counted as California’s junior senator behind fellow Democrat Dianne Feinstein.

Boxer has stuck to the principles she enunciated in her first campaign, voting against the authorizations of war in the Middle East and earning 100 percent vote ratings in 2013 from NARAL Pro-Choice America and the League of Conservation Voters.

“The fight is worth making,” Boxer said, citing her formative days at Brooklyn’s Public School 161. “I’m a fighter.”