StudioGlyphic

Her work often stretches into the night, a relentless series of 12-hour days that led Boxer to decide a few years ago that her second term would be it. She was in her 60s, had spent 20 years of weekdays apart from her husband, an Oakland lawyer, and that was more than enough.

But terrorism and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay changed her mind.

Boxer was in the Capitol building as the first jetliner crashed into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. She remembers standing next to Sen. John F. Kerry watching news reports when the second plane hit, and the confusion began to turn into understanding. "That's terrorism," Kerry said, pointing at the television.

They watched the Pentagon burn across the Potomac River and didn't learn until later that a fourth plane that had nose-dived into a Pennsylvania field might have been heading for the Capitol.

Still, Boxer planned to retire.

Six months after the attacks, dismayed by "the condition of the country economically, the budget, the shorting of education funding, the need to do more on homeland security," Boxer and some colleagues took to the Senate floor to urge the Bush administration to change course.

"The next day, Tom DeLay attacked us for daring to speak out in any way critical of the administration," Boxer said. "I tell you, when that happened, it hit me in a way I can't describe. But I began to fear for what could happen if people like DeLay and others were challenged, because they could take this precious country based on freedom of speech and free debate and all the things we believe in, and it could really turn into another place."

The grandmother's desire to retire burned away. Boxer told her surprised family and staff to start preparing for a reelection campaign. The fighter was ready for another round.

"I stayed in it," Boxer said, "because I really believe still in all the things I believed in when I got involved in the old days."