Wonderful Women Of The World: Barbara Boxer And “My Mother”
Posted by Michelle Moquin on 11th September 2010
I think it is only fair that if I highlight the facts about Fiorina, I should at least highlight some of the facts about Boxer. She deserves equal time too, if not more. Don’t ya think? :)
Before I feature all of Boxer’s accomplishments, or at least some of them; (In contrary to what Fiorina says, Boxer has accomplished quite a lot in her political career) there are many to list, I want to talk about the town hall meeting that took place in Mill Valley yesterday.
I had met my mother Thursday at the opening evening of the first ever Ceramics Annual of America show at Fort Mason in San Francisco. By the way if you have a love for art and especially enjoy clay as an art medium, this is a wonderful show to see.
So anyway, my mother is not a computer person; doesn’t even own one or have the desire, so I am pretty much her source when it comes to gathering information that she can’t find in her newspaper. She is an avid reader when it comes to “the paper”, and is constantly clipping things for me that I may miss on line, which occasionally I do, so I am grateful.
When I had heard about the town hall meeting with Fiorina and that supporters of Boxer, were going to show up, I thought this would be a good way for my mother to get involved. She has been a supporter of Boxer for as long as Boxer has been involved in politics and used to help with her campaigning many years ago. I thought my mother might want to show up at the meeting and jump back into the game. I also downloaded a schedule of the phone banks in Marin that were within 5 miles of her house should she want to participate in calling constituents.
My mother did gather outside the town hall meeting yesterday with other Boxer supports. She called me last night and the first words that came put of her mouth were, “I loved it!” She had held up signs and passionately kind of took the lead with a few others. Doug and I had joked that we just might get a call from my mother in jail. She can be rather verbal about her passions. I guess fruit doesn’t fall too far from the tree. :)
She reported to me that those in support of Fiorina were, in her words “Nasty”, using expletives as they shouted out dissing Boxer…even their signs were nasty words towards Boxer. But mom said that outside of a few loose tongues, the Dems were pretty decent, and Mom encouraged them to not stoop to the level of the Republicans.
As se spoke to me, she was fired up, I could tell. To hear the enthusiasm in my mother’s voice was exciting for me. I knew that she would feel the synergy of support and she would get the bug to get more involved. And she did. She is meeting again today in protest of Prop 23, and she is going to be phone banking for the next 3 weeks. Ya gotta love it. I do.
One of the things that my mother said to me before we hung up was how she didn’t understand why more people didn’t get involved. She said, “I won’t even be around to get the benefits of much that I am in support of but I still want to participate.” I smiled and said, “Mom, if others thought more like you…if others jumped in to participate knowing that they may not benefit in their lifetime or even if they are around they wont benefit directly, but others will, and that that reason alone was important enough to show up, for others,for our future, the world would be so different.”
She was so grateful that I inspired her to want to get involved. She kept thanking me. I am so proud of my mother for believing enough in me to take the lead and go for it. My mother’s enthusiasm is contagious – she always has been. And I know that she is the impetus of a ripple has just begun.
So…back to Boxer…
Barbara Boxer
In these challenging economic times, Senator Barbara Boxer’s top priority is getting California back on track and getting Californians back to work.
Senator Boxer supported the 2009 economic stimulus plan, which is protecting and creating American jobs. She coauthored the bipartisan Invest in the U.S.A. Act, to encourage companies to bring overseas profits back to the United States to create jobs here. She has worked to provide funding for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership program, which would help American manufacturing companies remain competitive and keep jobs in the United States. To keep jobs and investment at home, she called for ending the tax break that companies receive for moving plants overseas.
Senator Boxer wrote the first-ever law to authorize federal funding for afterschool programs, so that children have a safe and enriching place to go at the end of the school day. She also wrote the law that provides businesses with an enhanced tax credit for donating computer equipment to schools, and she is a strong supporter of the tax deduction to help pay for the costs of a college education.
Boxer has been a strong supporter of health care reform measures to put patients first throughout her career. To provide quality health care, Boxer authored one of the first bills in the Senate to combat HMO abuses and to enact a Patients’ Bill of Rights – so that medical decisions are made by doctors and patients, not HMO bureaucrats. She has written a bill to provide a tax deduction to help pay for the cost of health insurance premiums, and she believes that all Americans should have access to the same health insurance program that members of Congress have. Senator Boxer supports allowing Americans to purchase lower-cost prescription drugs from Canada. And, she has been a strong advocate for increasing medical research funding to find cures for diseases.
As Chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Boxer believes that a strong economy and a healthy environment go hand in hand. One of her top priorities has been to address climate change, fighting for legislation to create clean energy jobs and reduce carbon emissions.
Boxer wrote the law to ensure that drinking water standards are set to protect children and other vulnerable populations and fought the Bush Administration’s attempt to allow more arsenic in drinking water. She supports expanding the program to clean up toxic waste sites, and she is pushing to ensure that polluters – not taxpayers – pay to clean up the mess. And, since 2005, she has won passage of legislation to protect as wilderness more than one million acres of pristine land in California.
Following the September 11 attacks, Boxer authored and fought for a bill to increase security in our transportation system and at our ports as well as to provide assistance to local first responders. She wrote the law allowing airline pilots with special training to carry guns in the cockpit, the law requiring that air marshals are on board high-risk flights, and the law that ensures California’s entire rail system is eligible for security grants to protect against possible terrorist attacks.
In 1990, while a member of the House, Boxer authored the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), which became law in 1994 as part of the comprehensive federal Crime Bill. Senator Boxer was also a strong advocate of the COPS program to put more police on the streets and directing stimulus funding to the COPS program.
Boxer is the Chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and also chairs the Senate Ethics Committee, the only Senator to chair two committees.
She also serves on the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, where she is a member of the following Subcommittees: Consumer Protection, Product Safety and Insurance; Aviation Operations and Security; Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries and Coast Guard; Science and Space; and Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine Infrastructure, Safety and Security.
On the Foreign Relations Committee, Boxer chairs the Subcommittee on International Operations and Organizations, Human Rights, Democracy and Global Women’s Issues.
Boxer started her career in public service in local government, serving six years as a member of the Marin County Board of Supervisors, including becoming the first woman to be elected by her peers as Chair of the Board.
Boxer was elected to the House of Representatives in 1982 and represented the Bay Area for 10 years. In 1992, she was elected to the Senate, making history with Senator Dianne Feinstein, as the first time two women had been elected as Senators from one state. Elected to a third Senate term in 2004, she received more than 6.9 million votes – the highest vote total for any Senate candidate in U.S. history.
Before her career in public service, Boxer was a stockbroker, graduating from Brooklyn College with a B.A. in Economics.
Boxer and her husband Stewart have been married for more than 40 years and have two children, Doug and Nicole, and four grandchildren.
And if that’s not enough….here are just a few of Boxer’s accomplishments:
Highlights of Senator Barbara Boxer’s Record
• Led the fight to secure passage of the Water Resources Development Act. As Chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, Senator Boxer worked with Ranking Republican Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma to write a comprehensive water resources bill. In 2007, they secured passage of the Water Resources Development Act, which authorized $1.3 billion for 54 flood control, ecosystem restoration and navigation projects in California. Senator Boxer successfully fought to pass the act and override a veto by President George W. Bush.
• Helped secure funding for additional C-17 aircraft built in Long Beach. Throughout her career in the Senate, Boxer has consistently led the fight for continued production of C-17 aircraft produced in Long Beach. In 2009, Boxer teamed up with Republican Senator Kit Bond and helped secure $2.2 billion in the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for the purchase of 8 additional C-17 aircraft.
• Designated more than 1 million acres of federal public land in California as wilderness. The 2009 Omnibus Public Lands package included three bills authored by Senator Boxer designating more than 700,000 acres of federal public land in California as wilderness. In October 2006, the President signed into law Senator Boxer’s Northern California Coastal Wild Heritage Wilderness Act, which designated over 273,000 acres in California as wilderness. In December 2002, Senator Boxer’s provision to protect 57,000 acres in Big Sur and the Los Padres Forest became law.
• Wrote the first-ever specific authorization for after-school programs. In 2001, Boxer worked with Republican Senator John Ensign to successfully write and pass the first-ever authorization with specific funding levels for after-school programs. After-school programs are now being funded at $1.13 billion, serving more than a million children.
• Helped secure tax incentives to bring overseas profits back to the United States. Senators Boxer and Republican Senator Ensign crafted legislation encouraging American companies to bring overseas profits back to the United States. The Invest in the USA Act provision created American jobs and stimulated investment in technology by reducing the corporate tax rate, for a one-year-period, to a 5.25 percent tax on earnings by foreign subsidiaries if the funds were reinvested in America.
• Helped secure more than $370 million for the San Francisco Airport BART extension. Between 1998 and 2005, Boxer helped secure more than $370 million for the BART to SFO project. The BART SFO project constructed an 8.7 mile, four-station rapid rail transit extension of the 95-mile BART system. Additionally, the finished project provided direct BART service to the San Francisco International Airport and a cross-platform transfer between BART and Caltrain, a 77-mile commuter rail service on the San Francisco Peninsula, at the Millbrae terminus station south of the airport. BART estimated that the project would create between 50,000 and 70,000 jobs during the construction period which was expected to begin in Spring of 1996.
• Worked to include COPS and EDA funding in the economic recovery bill. Senator Boxer made a series of calls to Obama Administration officials, including Vice President Biden and National Economic Council Director Larry Summers, and made the case for increased funding for community police and funding for Economic Development Agency grants that spur job creation in economically distressed areas. The Obama administration announced that cities across California will receive more than $211 million to hire police officers as part of the economic recovery package. The Recovery Act also included increased funding for the EDA by $150 million.
• Authored legislation requiring that homeowners be alerted if their lender sells their home mortgage loan. Senator Boxer passed an amendment to the housing bill requiring that homeowners be alerted within thirty days if their lender amtor transfers their home mortgage loan. This information helps homeowners avoid foreclosure.
Readers: There is so much more that Boxer has accomplished in her political career. Be like my mother, and find the enthusiasm that you have for a candidate and support them – make your support contagious and be the impetus of ripple that begins in your community. Do it. (Thank you:)
Cynthia: Nicely said. Like many women, we’re in support of women, but not “any” woman.
Zen Lill: Hey. I realized I neglected to address your question the other day. I am not sure that I write exactly the way I speak, and I’m not sure I understand what you mean by “normal circumstances”. I used to think my writing was my speaking in print, but the more I write the more I doubt it.
Although I used to let my emotions get in the way of my words over a passionate subject, now I am able to articulate better on the fly, in person. However, writing does give me the time to say what I want to say with all of the time in the world to say it. Or I should say, with all of the time that I need to say it, so inevitably my writing is different than my speak.
I think that if I spoke exactly as I wrote it would make me feel too one dimensional. And that conclusion is just meant for me. Because I am the blog writer who writes a monologue almost every day, to talk exactly like how I write would be just too much for me every day. So, that being said, although my passions and my feelings are the same, I like that I am a quite different here than in person. Although I think it is one of the reasons why many of my friends opt out of the “blog conversation”. They are experiencing a new side of “me”, a new way of speaking, through my blog, that they aren’t used to – At least that is what two of them eluded to me over a year ago.
Oh….and it seems your fans are begging for more. :)
Helen: I enjoyed the video a lot. I am so bothered by the plight of the polar bear, so this really pulled at my heart. Thanks for sharing.
Suzanne: I clicked on it but there was no nissan commercial. Was t different than Helen’s? Ill try again later.
Peter: Sorry you are having trouble. Hafa Adai.
Peace out everyone – Enjoy your saturday!
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
If you love my blog and my writes, please make a donation via PayPal, credit card, or e-check, please click the “Donate” button below. (Please only donations from those readers within the United States. – International readers please see my “Donate” page)
Posted in Good Reads and Good See'ds, Political Powwow, Wonderful Women Of The World | 21 Comments »
