California Democrats face call to pass the baton

Seasoned politicians discuss the value of term limits as younger hopefuls enter races.

- MARK Z. BARABAK COLUMNIST

REP. Nancy Pelosi, left, is weighing reelection at 85. Barbara Boxer, 84, left the Senate in her mid-70s.

(RICCARDO SAVI and EMMA MCINTYRE Getty Images)

Barbara Boxer decided she was done. Entering her 70s, fresh off reelection tothe U.S. Senate, she determined her fourth term would be her last.

“Tjust felt it was time,” Boxer said. “I wanted to do other things.”

Besides, she knew the Democratic bench was amply stocked with many bright prospects, including California’s then-attorney general, Kamala Harris, who succeeded Boxer in Washington en route to her selection as Joe Biden's vice president.

When Boxer retired in 2017, after serving 24 years in the Senate, she walked away from one of the most powerful and privileged positions in American politics, ajob many have clungto until their last, rattling breath.

(Boxer tried to gently nudge her fellow Democrat. and former Senate colleague, Dianne Feinstein, whose mental and physical decline were widely chronicled during her final, difficult years in office. Ignoring calls to step aside, Feinstein died at age 90, hours after voting ona procedural matter on the Senate floor.)

Now an effort is underway among Democrats, from Hawaii to Massachusetts, to force other senior lawmakers to yield, as Boxer did, to anew and younger generation ofleaders. The movement is driven by the usual roiling ambition, along with revulsion at Donald Trump and the existential angst that visits apolitical party every time it loses a dispiriting election like the one Democrats faced in 2024.