Meet The Candidate: Rebecca Bauer-Kahan

ORINDA, CA — Ballots for the March 5 primary are being mailed out, and voters may be confronted with many names or offices they don't know about. Patch reached out to all the candidates running for major legislative seats that represent the Tri-Valley. Below, read about Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, a Democratic candidate running for reelection in California Assembly District 16, which includes Dublin, Livermore, Pleasanton, Alamo, Danville, San Ramon, Lamorinda, and Walnut Creek.

If you would like to submit a candidate profile, see here, or email michael.wittner@patch.com. Answers are not edited.

Rebecca Bauer-Kahan

Does your campaign have a website? If so, include the URL here.

https://rebeccaforassembly.com

What city or town do you live in?

Orinda

What office are you seeking?

CA State Assembly

If you are running in a district, you can specify the district here.

Assembly District 16

Please give us your party affiliation.

Democrat

Now let's work on your biography, beginning with your education.

I am a proud Bay Area Native and a product of public schools. I graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and then attended Georgetown University Law Center for my law degree.

What is your occupation?

I have been an Assemblymember since 2018. Before serving our community in the Assembly, I was an attorney, environmental advocate, community volunteer, law professor, and mother to my three school aged kids. As an environmental attorney, I specialized in ensuring major corporations complied with environmental laws and regulations by leading internal investigations to improve their environmental practices, while maintaining profitability. I also oversaw and grew my office’s pro bono legal programs to include work for underserved individuals in the critical arenas of civil rights, immigration, homelessness and domestic violence.

Do you have a family? If so, please tell us about them.

My husband, Darren, and I are raising three school-aged children. I come from a large, close-knit family. My grandparents came to the United States as refugees in 1939 after fleeing Austria to escape the Holocaust. Their experience has helped shape my values, inspiring me to help others in the community.

Does anyone in your family work in politics or government?

My father currently serves as a member of a school board.

Have you ever held a public office, whether appointive or elective?

CA State Assembly, District 16 (since 2018)

How old will you be as of Election Day?

45 (for the March primary)

Now we'd like to ask a few questions about your reasons for running and your general views on politics and government. First, why are you seeking this office?

I am seeking reelection to this office because I wish to continue the honor of serving our community and the constituents of Assembly District 16 and continuing the strong bipartisan record of success I have accomplished over the past 5+ years in the Assembly. I have succeeded in passing many important new laws on the issues that matter the most to our community, but there is much more work to be done in areas such as public safety, the environment, gun sense, education, women’s reproductive rights, mental health, transportation, lack of affordable housing, equal rights for all, fiscal responsibility, the threat of wildfire, and the rising cost of living in California.

When I was first elected to the Assembly in 2018, I was fortunate to be made part of Assembly leadership from the very start, which has enabled me to deliver for our District in terms of obtaining millions in state funding for our community’s local projects and getting significant bills passed. I was immediately selected by my colleagues to serve as Assistant Speaker pro Tempore. I also founded and chair the Select Committee on Women's Reproductive Health – the first committee of its kind in the nation. As Chair of the Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee, I tackled preserving our water and protecting its quality, as well as expanding public access to open spaces. As a member of the Natural Resources Committee, I will continue to combat climate change by passing even more ambitious bills to protect our air, water and soil, and decreasing harmful chemicals in our environment. As the new Chair of the Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee, I will continue my groundbreaking work in pushing for effective new state regulation of Artificial Intelligence, to protect consumers from the bias of Automated Decision Tools, building on President Biden’s “AI Bill of Rights.” I am seeking this office because I strongly desire to continue this important fight for our constituents and our community, as a leader in the Assembly who has proven that I know how to deliver for our community and get things done.

What do you think are the top three issues for voters in this election, and how do you plan to address them?

Our state faces many tough challenges including affordability and the rising cost of living, our climate crisis, keeping our communities safe, access to healthcare, ensuring funding to provide quality education for our children and now budget deficits for the first time since the last recession. I have worked very hard to represent our values in the State Assembly and I would be honored to earn your support to carry on this critical work. I believe the three top issues right now are:

Improving our environment and combating climate change - Every person deserves access to clean air, water, soil and open space, and we must act boldly now more than ever to leave our children and grandchildren a healthy planet. I have already passed many new laws to protect our air from fossil fuel contamination, preserve our precious water supply and keep it clean, eliminate harmful chemicals such as pesticides and toxins from our products and our environment, and increase public access to open spaces such as Tesla Park. I also have passed critical wildfire prevention legislation. I pledge to continue this critical work tirelessly, as it simply cannot wait.

Ensuring safe communities - I will continue working with public safety officials and ensuring they have the funding and resources they need to keep our communities and schools safe. We must continue the work we’ve done to strengthen gun laws and address the growing drug crisis, as well as ensure we have in place robust social services safety nets for our most vulnerable populations - including strengthening our mental health system.

Standing up against extremism and protecting our rights - Since the fall of Roe v. Wade, I have been a state leader in quickly passing multiple much-needed laws protecting women’s healthcare and reproductive rights - but there is significant work left to do. We must also continue to fight hate in all forms and ensure a just and equitable society for all where the rights of every person are protected.

What are the major differences between you and the other candidates seeking this post?

My many years of professional experience in my legal career and my laser focus on environmental issues as both an attorney and an environmental advocate are background qualifications that make me uniquely suited to continue my role in the Assembly. My history of success and leadership in the Assembly speaks best to my qualifications to seek reelection to this post. Since my election in 2018, I have demonstrated in the Assembly a record of grabbing the reins to act swiftly yet carefully when critical issues arise, for example, passing new gun safety laws to counteract tragic school shootings, acting immediately to pass a law protecting women seeking a right to choose the very day Roe v. Wade was overturned, and authoring a new law to save lives by creating a 988 crisis telephone hotline instead of 911 for mental health crises.

As Chair of the Assembly’s Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee, I am determined to protect people from a future where decisions using Artificial Intelligence that significantly impact their lives are made without their knowledge or consent. In 2023, I introduced my first-of-its-kind landmark bill AB 331 to prevent algorithmic discrimination, requiring the AI industry to follow best practices and cracking down on bad actors. I am proud of my strong record of action and success in the Assembly and I would be honored to earn your vote.

What other issues do you intend to address during your campaign?

In addition to the top 3 issues discussed in Question # 12 above, I intend to address these issues:

* Work to quickly address the rising costs of living and our housing and homelessness crisis;

* Continue the work to ensure our communities are safe from wildfires; * Continuing to improve our mental health system Increasing access to quality, affordable health care across the state;

* Supporting and improving our education system;

* Holding utilities accountable for increases in ratepayer prices and for wildfire risk;

* Promoting fiscal incentives for construction of new green energy developments such as wind and solar;

* Tackling drought issues by addressing how to save our precious water and analyzing new mechanisms for groundwater replenishment;

* Addressing what our state agencies need to do to combat the growing home insurance crisis;

* Assisting our community's small businesses that need help bouncing back from the pandemic;

* Taking on transportation issues such as highway roadbed conditions, increased traffic, and decreased BART safety;

* State funding issues such as ensuring our community gets its fair share of state funding for parks, roads, affordable housing, social services, and other projects important to our District, especially as we appear to be heading into a budget shortfall;

* Regulating Artificial Intelligence (AI) regulation, to ensure that we are protected from a future where significant decisions about our lives are made without our knowledge or consent.

What accomplishments in your past would you cite as evidence you can handle this job?

Since I was first elected, I have made a commitment to focus on the issues that matter most to our community. I have kept that promise and delivered on those very issues, as well as tackled successfully other significant new issues that have arisen, by passing important new laws in critical arenas and securing millions of dollars in state funding for projects in our community. My approach has paid off for our community, as I have had tremendous success in working across the aisle to pass important new legislation, including bills on climate change and the environment, education, women’s healthcare and reproductive rights, decreasing wildfire risk, gun sense, improving our mental health system, public safety for our schools and communities, the wise expenditure of tax dollars, and more. Just a few of these accomplishments include:

* Environment - Fighting and winning the decades-long battle to preserve 3100-acre Tesla Park in perpetuity as open space and parkland, working with Governor Newsom’s team and others to make it happen;

* Wildfire - Decreasing the threat of wildfires by fighting and securing (1) $3.5 million in new firefighting equipment for the for East Bay Regional Park District, which oversees over 126,000 acres of parks, wildlands and open spaces in our community, so that it can more effectively fight fires on its land; and (b) $800,000 to fund a local fire district’s efforts to educate the community on fire prevention;

* Women’s Health and Reproductive Rights - Fighting back against the Trump Administration and right-wing extremists when they overturned Roe v. Wade, by quickly passing several new bills to tackle this important issue. My bill, AB1666, was signed into law and enacted the very day Roe was overturned, creating a strong legal shield for California abortion providers and patients. I also authored first-in-the nation AB 1242, written in partnership with the California Attorney General, which now protects patients who come to CA to seek abortions or reproductive care. I also passed my bill AB 352, now law, which protects patients and providers by preventing information on reproductive and sexual health from being automatically shared during interstate medical records-sharing;

* Mental Health and 988 - Combating the rising mental health crisis in our communities by becoming a mental health champion. In 2022, Governor Newsom signed into law my landmark bill AB 988, the Miles Hall Lifeline and Suicide Prevention Act, which saves lives and transforms the way California responds to mental health emergencies through a new 988 crisis phone line to ensure people in crisis receive the appropriate urgent care they need from a trained team of mental health professionals;

* Artificial Intelligence - In 2023, I introduced my groundbreaking bill AB 331 to prevent algorithmic discrimination. This bill is the first of its kind in the state – requiring industry to follow best practices and cracking down on bad actors, to protect people’s lives from a future where decisions that significantly impact them are made without their knowledge or consent. As Chair of the Assembly’s Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee, I will continue this important work;

* Fiscal Responsibility and Consumer Protection - I have passed multiple bills specifically crafted to save the state and taxpayers millions of dollars through smarter, streamlined fiscal practices, for example, AB 2483, now law, and AB 1475, which saved taxpayer money by streamlining the development process for certain transportation projects. My bill AB 2083, enacted in 2023, makes utility companies pay for the fires they cause by preventing them from passing legal settlement costs on to their ratepayers;

* Education - I have fought to fund our public schools by bringing California's education spending up to the national per pupil average or higher (AB 39). When COVID-related budget decisions threatened California’s public schools, I held my ground to protect school funding and pushed hard to have our schools reopened as soon and as safely as possible.so that every child could return to the in-person quality education they deserved. For college students, I have fought to keep college affordable, including passing a bill that removed income exclusions which had penalized families who receive CalWORKs benefits (AB 807), and providing key protections for the nearly 100,000 California students who attend online, for-profit, and out-of-state schools by requiring these schools to comply with state accreditation requirements (AB 1344). I have recently introduced AB 769 to ensure that forgiven student loan debt from higher education does not become taxable income to the borrower;

* New Laws to Correct Injustices: My enacted 2023 bill package improved protections for workers in vulnerable positions: AB 521 requests OSHA require a women’s restroom on construction sites and AB 1076 ended the unfair employer practice of including illegal noncompete clauses in workers’ contracts. I combatted harmful discriminatory gendered language in two new laws: AB 439 added nonbinary options for gender identity on death certificates, enabling nonbinary individuals to be correctly identified and respected, and AB 378 eliminated the use of the outdated word “he” in our state codes, replacing it with gender-neutral language. I protected the rights of our youth with AB 2658, which allows youth to count time spent on electronic monitoring towards their sentences, bringing their rights into line with the rights of adult detainees;

What is the best advice anyone ever gave you?

“Do your homework and always be prepared with the facts.” I have found this good advice holds very true for my work in the Assembly. We vote on hundreds and hundreds of bills every year. In order to be an effective legislator and cast votes on all these bills, you must be informed and educated. Additionally when building coalitions and working with my fellow legislators to pass a bill I have authored, for example, I need to be ready at all times to have detailed, clear facts and arguments to present that demonstrate why that new law is necessary.

If I were giving advice to a newly elected legislator in California, I would say, “don’t be afraid to try something unique and difficult even if everyone tells you it can’t be done.” In my 5+ years of experience as an Assemblymember, I have learned that enormous obstacles to legislative change can indeed be overcome if you set your mind to it and always stay laser-focused on what is best for your constituents’ interests.

Is there anything else you would like voters to know about yourself and your positions?

It is unfortunate that those we elect to public office do not always hold true to the promises they make during their campaigns. In my case, I am proud to say I have adhered very strictly to my promises, doubling down to work hard on the very issues I promised to tackle as priorities in 2018: e.g., gun safety and the environment. And as new and difficult problems have arisen since 2018 that have affected our community (e.g., Covid, Roe v. Wade being overturned), I have stepped up to address those issues, too. I believe my record and my actions while in office demonstrate that constituents can trust me to keep their interests top of mind and work hard on the issues that matter the most to them.