Barbara Boxer is currently serving her second term as U.S. senator from California.

Boxer was born November 11, 1940, in Brooklyn, NY, and received her B.A. in economics from Brooklyn College in 1962. She is Jewish and married to Stewart Boxer. They have two children and reside in Greenbrae.

Previously engaged as a stockbroker at a Wall Street securities firm in the early sixties, in 1972 Boxer went on to become a journalist and associate editor of the Pacific Sun newspaper for two years. She also served as a congressional aid from 1974–76. Boxer first entered politics in 1976 when she began serving on the Marin County Board of Supervisors. Being the first elected female president of the board, Boxer served six years on that board and then successfully won a seat in the House of Representatives in 1982. In 1992 she was elected to the U.S. Senate with 53 percent of the vote.

Senator Boxer has been an activist leader in many causes of the Democratic Party, such as supporting the "Computers in Classrooms" law, an "Early Education" bill, an "After-School Education and Safety" bill, and bills aimed to restore the nation's wetlands and remove the threat of offshore oil drilling along California's coast. Boxer also authored the Children's Environmental Protection Act and was the Senate author of legislation that preserved the Presidio of San Francisco as part of the national park system. An advocate of keeping abortion legal in America, Senator Boxer also authored the Freedom of Choice Act and helped lead the floor fight for passage of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act. Senator Boxer serves on the Senate committees on the Budget, Environment and Public Works, and Foreign Relations and performs the duties of deputy assistant floor leader for the Democratic Party.