Trying to not let GOP label define her
Bay Area assemblywoman is facing Dem challenger
Catharine Baker calls herself pro-choice, pro-environment and pro-gun control. As the only Republican to hold partisan office in the decidedly liberal Bay Area, it may be the only way she can hang on.
Since she was first elected in 2014, the East Bay assemblywoman has split with the GOP on issues that define it nationally and has sought to distance herself from the man who now controls the Republican Party, President Trump. Her tenure in Sacramento has been marked by frequent excursions across the aisle to work with Democrats.
“That’s one of the strongest signatures of my record: independence from parties and interest groups,” Baker said. “I feel I’m one of the most effective members of the Legislature that way.”
But now, Baker is running for re-election against an actual Democrat, Rebecca Bauer-Kahan. A law professor and first-time candidate, Bauer-Kahan questions whether Baker is really all that moderate and is working to tie her more closely to the Republican Party, in hopes of dislodging the GOP from the lone elective office it holds in the Bay Area.
“I do respect choosing the best person — and that can transcend party lines — but then it
does come down to the issues,” Bauer-Kahan said. “I just couldn’t stand by when my representative wasn’t voting my values.”
The demographics of the 16th Assembly District, which stretches from Walnut Creek and Lafayette southeast through Livermore, demand that Baker draw support from beyond her party. Democrats hold a 41-to-27 percent registration edge, with 28 percent claiming no party preference.
Baker’s initial win in 2014 was an unexpected gift for the GOP, attributable in part to her opposition to allowing BART unions to strike. A pair of walkouts the previous year had left thousands of commuters in her suburban district with no alternative to cramming onto gridlocked freeways. Voter anger was high, the Democratic candidate had the support of BART’s unions, and the Republicans won their first Bay Area legislative election since 2006.
Much of Baker’s literature for her re-election campaign reads like the greatest hits of a moderate Democrat. Against a deep-blue background, Baker’s mailers note 100 percent legislative scores in back-to-back years from Planned Parenthood and cite her support for “landmark” climate change laws. A particular highlight: Baker was the sole Republican legislator to vote for a bill that envisions California producing all its energy from renewable sources by 2045.
One Baker mailer features a photo of Gov. Jerry Brown — who has not made an endorsement in the race — and a quote from the Democrat calling her “the kind of independent leader we need in Sacramento.”
The approach worked in the June primary, in which Baker defeated Bauer-Kahan by 13 points.
Baker, a 47-year-old Dublin resident, said that with Republicans and Democrats seemingly unable to work together at the national level, her bipartisan approach is needed “now more than ever. That’s why you see pure Democrats saying, ‘I’m going to vote for you.’ ”
She admitted that the Trump effect follows her around in a district where the president was drubbed by Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election by more than 2-1. “Any time something happens at the national level, it permeates locally,” Baker said. “So I try to work harder.”
She also disowns large pieces of Trump’s agenda. She said she supports the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which protects young undocumented adults who arrived in the U.S. as minors from deportation. Trump has sought to end the program.
“I support a woman’s right to choose,” Baker added. “I support the Paris accords,” the international agreement to limit carbon emissions. Trump pulled the U.S. out of the accords last year.
So why not simply switch parties and run as a Democrat? Because “I do believe in a limited, constrained government,” Baker said. “When I look at the principles that I believe in, and the policies, to me (the choice) is very clear.”
For some of her constituents, Baker has successfully separated herself from Trump’s GOP.
“I will not vote for a Republican for a long time at the national level,” Vivek Vasudeva said after Baker knocked on his San Ramon door recently to ask for his support. But Vasudeva said he’ll vote for Baker.
“Balancing the needs of the community with fiscal responsibility ... I think she’s done excellent,” he said.
Still, Baker can’t shed the R after her name entirely. For some, party lines remain intractable.
“I feel like she doesn’t want (the Republican) label,” Katie Ricklefs said of Baker, while hosting a gathering for the challenger at her Lafayette home. “I find that disingenuous. If you want to be a Democrat, then switch parties.”
She added, “I find she is a moderate, (but) there are some votes that are just wrong.”
Bauer-Kahan offers herself as a Democrat who will deliver “100 percent of the time.” Baker’s perfect voting score with Planned Parenthood for the past two years doesn’t make up for her 29 percent rating in 2015, Bauer-Kahan said — and she pointed out that she’s the one who won the organization’s endorsement.
Baker “says ‘I’m pro-choice,’ but she votes anti-choice,” Bauer-Kahan said. She pointed to Baker’s vote in 2015 against a bill that required health clinics offering certain pregnancy services to provide information about how clients could obtain state-funded abortions. Baker defended her vote as a defense of clinics’ free-speech rights, an argument the U.S. Supreme Court cited in striking down the law this year.
Bauer-Kahan, 39 and a “lifelong Democrat,” lives in Orinda and teaches law at Santa Clara University and Golden Gate University. “Devastated” by the 2016 presidential election, she coordinated the legal response at San Francisco International Airport for immigrants stranded by Trump’s initial travel ban from majority Muslim nations in January 2017.
“I’m an attorney, and I believe very strongly in the Constitution. This was something I could do,” Bauer-Kahan said. “It was the privilege of a lifetime.”
She said Baker’s action falls short of her talk on more than just abortion rights. She noted that Baker voted against a bill in 2016 making it illegal to possess ammunition magazines that hold more than 10 rounds. Baker, who advertises her “F” score from the National Rifle Association, argues that Bauer-Kahan is cherry picking one bill, unrepresentative of her overall record.
On the environment, Baker hasn’t impressed the Sierra Club, which scored her voting record from 2015 to 2017 at 44 percent. That “is a failing record by any measure,” BauerKahan said.
Baker counters that she doesn’t pretend to be a Democrat, and that the district doesn’t expect her to vote like one.
“When you’re 100 percent for just one perspective, you’re failing your constituents of the broader community,” she said. “I’m a Catharine Baker Republican. I feel really good about it.”