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There is an old, blissful political adage that a neoconservative is a liberal who has been assaulted by reality.
Barbara Boxer, the former unreserved US Senator from California, was recently assaulted, for real. She was walking on a quiet side street near trendy Jack London Square in Oakland when a young man snuck in, pushed Boxer and grabbed his iPhone before slipping away in a waiting car.
After verifying that his personal photos and other data were stored securely in the cloud, Boxer’s first reaction was not to order a MAGA hat or send a check to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation. Rather, she spoke in terms of remediation and social justice – the kind of talk that blows punitive-minded conservatives into the head.
“It’s a threefold approach,” Boxer, who divides his time between Oakland and the desert outside of Palm Springs, said on a recent Zoom call from southern California. “One is that you have to punish people for the crime. Second, you must first prevent crime by providing more options for our children. Third, you need community policing.
Officers apprehended the ringtone chief who victimized the 80-year-old boxer, but have yet to catch his attacker, she said. However, the former senator has already moved on and seemed much more troubled by other things, starting with new Texas law which is on the verge of banning abortion in the state.
The Supreme Court’s tacit approval of the draconian legislation, in a 5-4 decision, at nightfall, is widely seen as a precursor to Roe’s overturning against Wade, with the landmark 1973 ruling asserting the a woman’s legal right to terminate her pregnancy.
Boxer, who has made the abortion issue a centerpiece of his decades-long political career, said Texas law – which offers a $ 10,000 bounty for people who perform, assist or encourage an abortion – was worse than anything she had ever imagined.
“It gives women’s rights to vigilantes, hate vigilantes, on a mission to destroy women who think they have the right to privacy and the right to make their own decisions,” she said, an old photo with President Obama looking over his shoulder. .
With that, Boxer delved into two of the issues animating the Democratic left, changing the obstruction of the Senate and reshuffling the Supreme Court.
Having served in the minority, Boxer is aware of the protection afforded by filibuster, which prevents the ruling party from flouting the opposition. But, she said, the Senate – which sets its own rules – has changed the way filibuster works on several occasions, including banning its use against Supreme Court candidates.
Boxer said she would add two more bans, allowing the current naked Democratic majority to pass legislation protecting voting rights against aggression by Republican state lawmakers and codifying Roe against Wade by passing federal law that guarantees women the right to unhindered abortion care in all 50 states.
As for the High Court, Boxer has no problem expanding the Supreme Court by a few seats – a move that could undermine his Tory majority – and would also support a mandatory retirement age rather than allowing judges to serve for life.
She would start by impeaching left-wing associate judge Stephen G. Breyer, who Boxer says must resign before President Biden can pick a successor and pass his selection to the Senate ahead of the 2022 midterm election, which could cost the Democrats control. .
“We are at a time in our country where the majority of the Supreme Court has just authorized the secret civilian police to denounce their neighbors who are having abortions,” Boxer said. “We can’t risk having more people like this.”
“He’s had a wonderful career,” she continued, referring to Breyer, 83. “Look, I had a wonderful career and people said, ‘How could you go away? There is a time to do it. There is a season for everything.
For Boxer, it happened after nearly a quarter of a century in the Senate.
In 1992, she made history alongside Dianne Feinstein when California became the first state to elect two women to the Senate. Boxer retired in January 2017, at the age of 76. Feinstein, 88, continues to serve after being re-elected in 2018 for her fifth full term – much to the dismay of some Democrats who want her to step down in favor of someone younger, more partisan and more downright liberal .
Asked about her former colleague, Boxer said: “If Senator Feinstein called me today and asked my opinion, I would say that only you can decide on this. But from my perspective, I want you to know that I have spent very productive years away from the Senate doing good things. So put that into the equation.
Boxer spends part of her time as a healthcare consultant, part commenting on television and advising USC’s Center for the Political Future, part working on environmental issues and part doing volunteering with children in her desert community.
“Life after the Senate is different,” Boxer said, although there isn’t much he misses about his life inside the Beltway, except perhaps for the benefit of have a staff of 40 members at its disposal.
“Thank goodness Siri,” she said, after replacing her stolen iPhone and making sure the voice-activated assistant stays ready. “Siri is my assistant.”
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