Barbara Boxer
Barbara Levy Boxer (born November 11, 1940) is the junior United States Senator from California (since 1993). A member of the Democratic Party, she previously served in the U.S. House of Representatives (1983–1993). Born in Brooklyn, New York, Boxer graduated from 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 District 6. She sat on the House Armed Services Committee, and was involved in government oversight, passing several procurement reforms. Boxer won the 1992 election for the U.S. Senate. She previously held the record for the most popular votes in any U.S. Senate election in history, having received 6.96 million votes in her 2004 re-election, until her colleague, Dianne Feinstein, the senior Senator from California, surpassed that number in her 2012 re-election. Boxer is the ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee and the vice chair of the Select Committee on Ethics. She is also the Democratic Chief Deputy Whip. Although generally identified with San Francisco Bay Area, where her political career began, Boxer now lives in the Coachella Valley, making her, along with John Chiang, the only statewide elected official to live in the Southern half of California. Boxer currently ranks eleventh in seniority in the United States Senate and became the most senior junior Senator upon the retirement of Tom Harkin in January 2015. On January 8, 2015, Boxer announced that she would not seek re-election in 2016.