Sometimes, it’s a good thing that the junior Senator from the Golden State is such a legislative incompetent.  Given her far left ideology, were Barbara Boxer better able to master Senate procedure and the fine points of promoting legislation, she might have done more damage than she has done these past seventeen years.   The damage she has done has largely been ther votes for an ever-larger federal government and ever greater government spending.

As a result, roughly one in eight Californians are currently out of work, a rate 33% higher than when she was first elected to the United States Senate, or 25% higher than when she took office.

Now, instead of supporting legislation which would lower the regulatory burden on the small businesses which (as even the president has acknowledged) create the bulk of new jobs, Mrs. Boxer, claiming that “pressing Senate business” prevented her from traveling to Copenhagen ”delivered the speech she was planning to give in Denmark“, “America Is Acting on Global Warming,” in the hearing room of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (which she chairs).

And boy was it a doozy.

While evidence is being brought to light with each passing day (sometimes it seems each hour) questioning the data which have been used to define Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW), Ma’am behaves as if nothing has changed.  Not just that, she’s trying to take credit for work she hasn’t done, as if her cap and trade is a done deal.  Hate to break it to you, Ma’am, but it ain’t close to being done, unless you count being done as being finished, doomed to fail.  And many Democrats grouse that Ma’am’s manner has helped prevent passage of this job-killing legislation she introduced:

In private conversations, Senate staffers say that Boxer’s abrasive personal style helped tank the climate bill that Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and former Sen. John Warner (R-Va.) sponsored last year.

That grumbling comes from Democratic as well as Republican staffers, with one of Boxer’s fellow partisans accusing her of stymying progress: “People don’t look at her as the person who’s going to make a deal and bring both sides to the table. Her way is the only way.”  No wonder Boxer’s climate control bill has “floundered” since the House version passed in late June.

And Californians (not to mention the rest of the country) should be grateful for that. Her bill would increase our energy costs while imposing an even greater regulatory burden on business, meaning fewer jobs created (and maybe even more than a few destroyed).

So, if you’re going to have a left-wing Senator, guess it’s a good thing to have one like Barbara Boxer.   Once she puts her name on a bill, it’s all but doomed to defeat.  After seventeen years in the Senate, only three of her bills have become law.  Had she been a more effective legislator, the unemployment rate in the Golden State might rival that of in its Great Lakes counterpart.