In 2005, Boxer vowed to "use all the parliamentary tools I've been given as a U.S. Senator" to delay the vote on Bush Supreme Court nominee John Robert's confirmation. These and other tactics have prompted critics to accuse her of being partisan and divisive.

The Economy

A proponent of fair trade, Boxer wrote March 2004 amendment that would give companies that create American jobs a tax break. Those who send jobs overseas would lose the credit.

Boxer supported the $700 billion financial bailout in fall 2008.

The Environment

As a senator and chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee in the 111th Congress, Boxer has made an aggressive pro-environment agenda one of her calling cards. True to form, Boxer drives a Toyota hybrid

She led efforts to recover abandoned industrial sites and to ban a gasoline additive that was a suspected carcinogen. She added an in 1996 amendment to the Safe Drinking Water Act to ensure standards were established to protect children and other at-risk populations. Boxer sharply criticized the Bush administration 's rollback of clean air legislation and logging restrictions and fought to stall most of its legislation on the environment.

When Boxer took the helm of the Environment and Public Works Committee in January 2007, she made it clear that climate change was at the top of her legislative agenda, even creating two subcommittees to address the issue.

In 2007, she sponsored legislation that would require reductions in greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by 2025, and to 80 percent below 1980 levels by 2050. The proposal was too radical for many of the committee's senators still skeptical of climate change's effects. Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla), the panel's ranking member who has called climate change a hoax, opposed it. Boxer's proposals were even criticized by Democrats like Sen. John F. Kerry, who tried to forge climate-change compromise, as unattainable.

Boxer-Kerry 2009 Climate-Change Bill

In September 2009, Boxer and Kerry (D-Mass.) introduced their version of a climate bill, the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act , outlining a strategy for curbing greenhouse gas emissions and cutting U.S. dependence on foreign oil. The bill called for stricter limitations on emissions than its counterpart in the House, proposing a 20 percent decrease from 2005 levels by the year 2020.

The bill's other provisions included a cap-and-trade system that would let industries auction off emission allowances, and an offset program that would compensate farmers and landowners for practices that help with carbon mitigation, like sustainable agriculture and planting trees.

While Boxer said the bill would help invigorate the economy by providing incentives for private investment, Inhofe accused Boxer of using "a few corporate prostitutes" poised to make a lot of money, as a way to advance the legislation.

In an unprecendented move, Inhofe led every Republican on the Environment and Public Works panel to boycott the bill's October 2009 mark-up. After delaying the vote for days over their concerns, Boxer called further analysis "duplicative and waste of taxpayer dollars," and continued the mark-up with only Democrats present. The bill passed out of the committee by an 11-1 vote, with no Republican members voting.

Iraq and National Security

Boxer was an anti-war activist in the 1960s, and she continues to oppose military intervention. She voted against the first Gulf War in the early 1990s and against authorizing the use of force in Iraq in 2002.

In 2005, Boxer delayed the nomination of then-Bush National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice to become secretary of state, attacking her support of the Iraq war and questioning the veracity of the statements Rice made in the lead-up to the Iraq conflict.

In 2007, Boxer again sharply criticized Rice's management of the Iraq war, charging that Rice wouldn't pay the "ultimate price" because she didn't have children who would be asked to fight. Conservative media immediately attacked Boxer for what they called a "low blow" and demanded that she apologize, but Boxer refused.

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