Boxer made her announcement during an interview with her grandson, which she posted on her political website. She said she was not leaving the Senate because of the rancorous tone on Capitol Hill or because of her age.
“Some people are old at 40 and some people are young at 80,” Boxer said. “I feel as young as I did when I got elected.” But she said she wants to return to California and continue her political work through her political action committee.
“I am never going to retire,” she said. “The work is too important. But I will not be running for the Senate in 2016.”
The departure of the 74-year-old progressive is expected to set off a scramble among the state’s most prominent politicians, several of whom are expected to run for her seat.
Boxer has been among the Senate’s most unyielding advocates for environmentalists, women’s rights groups and organized labor. A feisty crusader with a taste for confrontation, Boxer’s combative style was not always conducive to the nuances of legislative deal-making, leaving the senator with few landmark laws bearing her name.
But the tenacious politician nonetheless will leave Congress with her imprint on countless policies, using her influence as former chair of the potent Environment and Public Works Committee to steer the direction of major legislation – and her media savvy to disrupt traditional senate order.
Boxer’s testy exchanges with former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice were parodied on "Saturday Night Live." Her scolding of a general who addressed her as “ma’am” instead of “senator” enraged the right. The nomination of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas nearly collapsed in large part because of Boxer’s efforts.
Yet the senator’s limitations as a builder of political bridges came into sharp focus at a key moment for Democrats, when they controlled both houses of Congress and the White House, yet the Senate could not agree on legislation to combat climate change – Boxer’s signature environmental issue.
The former stockbroker and radio journalist catapulted herself onto the national stage during the Reagan administration, when the then-congresswoman exposed the Pentagon’s purchase of $600 toilet seat covers and $7,600 coffee pots. She began wearing a necklace made from a small bracket the Pentagon purchased for $850.
Critics branded Boxer a grandstander, and they said she was too much a liberal firebrand to ever become senator of such a large, diverse state where the electorate was more moderate. But the politician’s activism ultimately served her well with voters and donors, particularly women.
Boxer was among the seven House members who marched up the male-dominated Senate steps and demanded a vote on the Thomas confirmation be postponed so that charges of sexual harassment against the nominee could be investigated. The protest instigated the televised hearings that nearly sunk Thomas. It also triggered a national backlash against the Senate that forged the path for Boxer’s election.
She was at the center of what became known as the “year of the woman” in American politics.
The senator’s spirited remarks in committee rooms and on the Senate floor are cherished by the left. When the GOP took over Congress in 1994 and set about rolling back environmental laws, Boxer launched into a three-day filibuster in the Senate. She has sparred with arch-conservative Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania over abortion rights. She lobbied aggressively for an Equal Rights Amendment.
Boxer rattled Capitol Hill with her crusade for an open investigation into allegations of unwanted sexual advances by former Sen. Bob Packwood, an Oregon Republican. Some veteran senators were appalled by her guerrilla tactics and disregard for Senate decorum as she accused colleagues of a coverup. But many voters were appalled by what they learned about the ways of the Senate as a result of her unrelenting campaign.
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), then chair of the Senate Ethics Committee, was so annoyed by Boxer that he responded to her charge that he lacked ethics by saying: “Being called unethical by Barbara is like being called ugly by a frog."
Boxer irked colleagues again in 2004, when she challenged the electoral college votes from Ohio, where some Democrats alleged fraud. She was the only senator to do so. The move delayed certification of George W. Bush’s reelection for several hours.
Yet amid all the headline-grabbing, the senator has also proven herself a sometimes-capable player of the inside game. She effectively collaborated with Republicans to push through multibillion-dollar transportation measures. Late in the presidency of George W. Bush, she persuaded colleagues to override his veto of a $20-billion measure to fund ports, waterways and flood control. Boxer has shrewdly maneuvered to bar oil and gas drilling off the coast of California and put California wilderness off limits to development.
The senator’s clout was on display most recently when Republicans tried to work around her to overhaul landmark chemical safety laws. They forged a deal with the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, a liberal, that had considerable momentum when it was unveiled in the spring of 2013, with other Democrats signaling they could support the measure. That all fizzled when Boxer – at the urging of California officials worried that the Senate plan jeopardized their own chemical safety efforts – put the brakes on the plan.
An agreement was still far off in September when Boxer enraged her GOP counterpart on the environment committee, David Vitter of Louisiana, by giving the press a copy of his confidential draft proposal, complete with her notes highlighting all the problems in it.
Vitter, clearly rattled himself, accused Boxer of a “temper tantrum.”
Boxer, known for working whimsical verse into her speeches, ended her announcement Thursday with a rhyme.
“Although I won’t be working from my Senate space and I won’t be running in that next tough race, as long as there are issues and challenges and strife, I will never retire because this is the meaning of my life.”