Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer announced on her website that she will retire from the Senate at the end of her current term. Boxer will not be running for reelection in 2016, and her departure will create a rare open Senate seat in deeply blue California.
Video:
In a message on her website, Sen. Boxer (D-CA) made it clear that she is not retiring completely from politics, “I am never going to retire. The work is too important, but I will not be running for the Senate in 2016. I’m going to continue working on the issues that I love. I’ll have more time to help other people through my PAC For Change community. I have to make sure this Senate seat stays progressive. That is so critical, and I want to help our Democratic candidate for president make history. But you know what? I want to come home. I want to come home to the state that I love so much, California.”
Boxer’s announcement should set off a mad scramble among Democrats in the state. Already the names of California Attorney General Kamala Harris and California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom are being floated as potential Senate candidates. The race for the Democratic nomination in the state should be extremely competitive and interesting. Sen. Boxer has spent more than two decades in the Senate and a previous decade in the House.
Sen. Boxer has been an outspoken liberal senator. She has been a strong voice pro-choice issues, election reform, and the environment. She has been a staunch defender of Social Security and Medicare. Sen. Boxer was an outspoken critic of the Iraq war who voted against the use of force in resolution in Iraq. She will be missed in the United States Senate.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
while either Gavin Newsom or Kamala Harris would make fine candidates what will be muc more interesting is which Republican will run…
Meg Whitman… Carly Fiorina… Dan Lungren?
I can’t wait for the next clown show to start…
Whatever rethug run all they would be doing is pissing away millions of their own money because I don’t see the gop putting any money into the state
Kamala Harris is entirely a self promoter without much substance. She repeatedly REFUSED to work with even the NAACP or any other groups to solidify the state’s hate crimes laws. She has been totally inimical to legislative issues that would strengthen electoral and ballot accountability if it made work for her office. She thus has done nothing to help the very people who elected her. She was good on the mortgage crisis – cameras, newsprint – and virtually nothing else. She’s a phony in charming visage. She would NOT uphold things we care about if it did not make her look good or was too much work.
OMG!!!
Gavin would be a good one, but I’d kinda like him to be governor
Meg Whitman – she was at Disney and EVERYONE hated her
Carly Fiorina – the queen of outsourcing she about drove HP into the ground
Dan Lungren – don’t know much about him