Taking their seats

[Note: this story has been modified since its original posting to restore missing text.]

State Rep. Judy Baker remembers with vivid clarity when she realized that politics would be part of her future: It was in the fourth grade in Silver Spring, Md.

Baker’s teacher divided the students into three groups, each representing a branch of government. Baker was part of the

judicial group, acting as a lawyer and then getting elected as judge.

The legislative group had to draft laws and learn to govern. The laws drawn up by the students were the ordinary rules you’d expect in grade school: No talking while the teacher is out of the room. No turning off the lights without the teacher’s permission.

Students acted as police officers to enforce the laws.

One day, a boy was accused of turning off the lights while the teacher was gone. He was “arrested,” and Baker was chosen as his defense attorney. Her classmate was cleared of the charges — there were no witnesses. But it wasn’t the successful defense that excited Baker the most, but rather the appeal of representing those who make the decisions about their communities.

Today, Baker, who is running unopposed for a second term in the Missouri House of Representatives, still likes knowing that people take an active role in their government. While she knows government is more complicated than what she learned in her fourth-grade class project, she’s enamored by it just the same.

“I’ve always known since then that it was something I wanted to do,” she said. “My thoughts weren’t formed perfectly at that time, but I remember that spark sincerely. I felt, even at that young age, the importance of someone stepping forward to ensure that democracy is in good hands and responsible to the people.”

During her second term, Baker wants to spend more time on larger issues such as health care and social services.

Without an opponent to campaign against, she has more time to spend studying issues and seeking solutions.

In the coming weeks, she will embark on a “walk and talk” tour of her district to hear from her constituents.

Baker, who represents part of Columbia and Boone County, arrived in Jefferson City after the 2004 election in which Missouri Republicans won three of five statewide offices and added to their majorities in both the House and Senate.

Baker said she believes that in order for the Democrats to take back the majority in the General Assembly, the party needs to return to its roots.

Her House colleague, Rep. J.C. Kuessner from Eminence, said the midterm elections “give us the opportunity” to talk about issues that affect “the poor and downtrodden,” which have been sidestepped for causes like guns, homosexuality and abortion.

Now that Republicans hold a majority in Missouri and nationally, perhaps voters will take a better look at what was promised them and what’s been delivered, Kuessner said.

“This is the first time in my lifetime — and I’m 63 — that I’ve seen Republicans control all the branches,” he said. “Now anybody who questioned their agenda can see it for what it is.”

Raised by Christian parents who now live in Springfield, Baker said her religious faith is the foundation on which she built her life. It guides her politics and informs her decisions as a lawmaker.

After earning a bachelor’s degree from MU in 1981, Baker intended to teach biology or science.

But she knew then that she’d need a greater comprehension of her faith to teach students about science. So she enrolled in seminary in Louisville, Ky., completing a master’s degree of divinity in 1986.

“Seminary caused me to build an authentic faith,” she said.

But it was at seminary that Baker also first felt the sting of political wounds. While Baker and her husband, John, who is pastor of First Baptist Church in Columbia, were students at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, she realized that women wouldn’t have the opportunity for leadership roles within the denomination. And many of the seminary’s professors came under fire for being too liberal and not adhering to the tenets of the Southern Baptist Convention. Most, if not all, of the Bakers’ beloved professors were dismissed within a few years of the uproar.

Baker said the time after seminary was like “walking wounded.”

She fears that her tenure in the Missouri House could be similar to her time at the seminary if Christians from opposing parties end up battling over key issues.

Baker said that because she was a Democrat with deep religious faith, she was considered “a real mystery” when she first arrived in the House.

However, the challenges she’s faced in office stem more from being a woman in politics than her faith and party.

Kuessner said it didn’t take him long to recognize Baker as someone who understands the issues from a Christian perspective.

“I immediately identified with her as a Christian and a Democrat, which is something a lot of people don’t understand because they’ve listened to that spin” that links Christianity with the Republican Party, he said.

Since the 2004 election, when the so-called values voter helped re-elect President Bush, many Democrats have been trying to reach out to Christians.

For years, the Republican Party has controlled the debate over morality and values, but Baker and Kuessner, along with other Christian Democrats in the Missouri legislature, are trying to change that.

“People are more willing to step out and articulate the social gospel again,” Baker says.

As the country hears more about “spiritual progressives” and “religious liberals,” the idea of a Democratic candidate talking about faith won’t seem unusual, Baker said.

Gary Kellner, president of the Genesis Group, a political consulting firm in Buffalo, N.Y., said evangelicals and Democrats have a lengthy heritage.

“The irony is that evangelicals in America were progressive and always believed that one’s values and faith should be animated in what one does in the public arena,” he said, but these same “progressive” Christians resisted any attempts to establish a religion aligned with a single party.

While Republicans “beat the drum on the coarseness of American society and morals,” they aren’t doing anything to curb the problem, he said.

And Democrats, hoping to draw support from disenfranchised Republican Christians, would do well not to be a mirror image of the GOP, Kellner said.

“Evangelicals, or all voters, should be careful who they go home from the dance with,” he said. “Does their record match their promises and rhetoric? Democrats aren’t doing a good job at a national or a state level of helping voters understand what they stand for and how the things they stand for are compatible with voters’ values.”

Kellner, who lived in Missouri for 15 years and served on the Springfield School Board, knows that Democrats have been cautious about speaking on faith issues.

“The Republican side has sung ‘Amazing Grace’ with a lot of passion even if they didn’t understand what it means, and on the Democratic side there’s been more hesitancy and caution,” he said. “It’s important for them to be able to talk about the ways in which their faith motivates their behavior in the public square.”

Kellner said Baker has been able to do that — not by being selective about how she quotes Scripture but by being faithful to it.

“You don’t hear her as a mirror of the Republicans. She’s a thoughtful, informed person” whose faith is important, he said.

Baker said that when she first announced her candidacy for state representative, people in her congregation were surprised.

“At church I’d never revealed my political leanings,” she said. “People mistakenly thought that because I was a Christian I had to be a Republican. But I have chosen to be a Democrat because of the resonance that the Democratic platform has with my faith.”

Baker often stands on principle, said her friend Leanna Guillory, who says Baker’s intellect, compassion, honesty and quest for fairness are what make her so well-suited to representative government.

“She will fight for what she believes in,” Guillory said. “And these are all great qualities that make her a great representative. I know that when Judy makes any decision, or casts a vote on an issue, she is driven by both heart and mind.”

Baker tries to bring a sense of balance with her to the House floor or committee hearings. She said she wants to remind legislators to “spend enough time on the things that we know are issues and that can bring us together.”

Baker said she believes Missourians are ready to rally around better health care and more funding for Medicaid. In 2004, when Gov. Bob Holden, a Democrat, was in office, Missouri Democrats successfully fought attempts by Republicans to cut Medicaid spending. But when Matt Blunt became governor in 2005, calling for severe reductions in social services, legislators approved a measure that cut 100,000 people from the Medicaid rolls.

Baker said that she now senses a lot of anger and anxiety over cuts in Medicaid benefits and that she believes there is a need for a comprehensive health care system in Missouri.

“The fact is they are actually touched or their family is touched by this,” she said. “I keep thinking it will subside, and we’ll have to drum up support, but it appears to still be alive.”

Baker said there needs to be a national health care summit that would address the health care system in a comprehensive approach. “The system we have now is so fragmented between the states and the federal government.”

With a background in health care administration, Baker was a natural to pick up the charge for a better health care system in the state. Baker is managing partner of CURAAdvantage, a consulting firm. She and Bob Degraaff, a business associate, are currently working for a nonprofit client in the northeastern United States on a project that would reorganize the Medicare system around better quality care and greater efficiency.

Baker says that the changes in Missouri’s Medicaid program are part of a larger conversation about the type and quality of health care available in America. She’d like Missouri legislators to talk about how cuts in the state program have cost Missouri $350 million in matching federal funds that are now going to other states.

Too often, she said, legislators heard about the people who were abusing the system but not enough about the people who needed the services.

“Even though we said it on the floor, what happened in real life came as quite a surprise to some,” she said. “People do good to see the government in anecdotal stories, but I think there are reasons why it’s detrimental. People aren’t hearing about the unintended consequences.”

Baker hoped that the most recent legislative session would make some moderate “fixes to the system,” but that didn’t happen.

Democrats proposed restoring funding for 3,000 people with disabilities and about 9,000 children, but the measure failed. A bipartisan group of legislators that includes Baker and Kuessner has been pushing Gov. Matt Blunt to call a special session to address the issue. She sees it as a means of doing something productive for Missourians.

About a month ago when a stack of letters arrived in Baker’s mailbox, she knew at first glance they were part of a letter-writing campaign. Emotion spread across her face as she read aloud a section from one woman’s letter asking for Baker’s help in restoring the Medicaid cuts because without them the woman couldn’t afford a necessary wheelchair.

“Bless her heart,” Baker said, her voice breaking.

She unfolded another letter from a constituent who wants her to support an initiative on the November ballot that would make all federally approved stem cell research and treatment available in Missouri.

While Baker supports a special session, she admitted she’s worried that any “fixes” might be used as election year gains by Republicans. The challenge, she said, is to “create a budget that has moral integrity and that doesn’t wax and wane in election years.”

Just as Baker is receptive to the messages she gets from voters, she wants her children — two daughters, 19 and 17, and son, 14 — to learn from her experience in the Missouri House of Representatives. She said they are learning the mechanics of the political system in school “and political character at home.”

Baker said it’s important that she teach her children about following a higher calling and working for things that are important. Her children have encouraged her legislative work, while grappling with the sacrifices the job demands.

“They have expressed that they want me to fulfill my dreams just like I encourage them to fulfill theirs,” she said, “So I do see my life as an extension of what I’m teaching them.”

In December 2003, when Baker was planning her first campaign for a seat in the Missouri House, the family was headed out of town on the way to a Christmas vacation in Colorado.

At one point, Baker announced: “I have a topic” — a code phrase for serious conversation. The kids groaned a little, and followed it with a heavy sighs, she recalled.

But when Baker launched into the topic — running for public office — “the energy rose in the van,” she said.

Her children, suddenly filled with enthusiasm, peppered her with questions. Some of the questions were about the public nature of politics and what it would mean for the family should Baker win the seat.

“I was honest with them about how they would continue to live in a fishbowl,” she said. Still, she told them they weren’t likely to be under any more scrutiny than what they already experienced because their dad was pastor of a prominent church in town.

“And they were comfortable with that because they were accustomed to that life,” she said.

What surprised Baker was that her children were first concerned with the possibility of negative attacks. It wasn’t what she’d expected, but then she realized it is part of the political climate in which they live.

“It’s unfortunate that they know it can get ugly, but they were willing to make those sacrifices,” she said.