Rep. Joe Baca (D) Elected Nov. 1999, 3d full term
Born:	Jan. 23, 1947, Belen, NM
Home:	Rialto
Education:	CA State L.A., B.A., 1971
Religion:	Catholic
Marital Status:	married (Barbara)
Elected  Office:	CA Assembly, 1992-98; CA Senate, 1998-99.
Military Career:	Army, 1966-68.
Professional Career:	Community affairs rep., General Telephone and Electric, 1974-89; Co-owner, Interstate World Travel, 1989-present.
DC Office	328 CHOB20515, 202-225-6161; Fax: 202-225-8671; Web site: www.house.gov/baca
State Offices	San Bernardino, 909-885-2222.
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The gateway to the Los Angeles Basin for decades was San Bernardino, situated on flat land where the route through the twisting, windy Cajon Pass took passengers on the Santa Fe Railroad and motorists on U.S. 66 from the hot and dusty desert to the greener, tree-lined Los Angeles basin. There were orange groves around the little railroad towns and vineyards to the west; this was an agricultural zone until World War II, when Henry J. Kaiser built the West Coast's first major steel mill between the Santa Fe and Southern Pacific lines in Fontana, just west of San Bernardino. Today, these lands have largely filled up. This Inland Empire, as it is called, may be where the smog piles up against the mountains, but it also has some of the lowest real estate prices in the Los Angeles Basin and an energetic small business economy. Business growth has been spurred by huge distribution and warehouse centers that service overseas cargos from the Long Beach port. Wal-Mart has viewed local sites as prime opportunities for its Supercenters.

The 43d Congressional District of California includes most of San Bernardino and Colton and the towns running west--Rialto; Fontana, where many new businesses supplanted the steel mill closed in 1994 (and reassembled in China) and property values have increased sharply; and Ontario, with its expanded airport. Every year Ontario celebrates the 4th of July at the longest picnic table in the world. San Bernardino's economy turned downward after the closure of Norton Air Force Base and the Santa Fe rail repair yard. But the base is now San Bernardino's new airport, and the city has built a new baseball stadium and Northrop Grumman has opened a new Missile Engineering Center here. Politically this area--and San Bernardino County, in general--trended Republican in the 1980s, as the cultural liberalism of California Democrats repelled family-oriented residents. But as the economy slowed in the early 1990s, and California's growing Latino population (the district was 58% Hispanic in 2000) and its continuing aversion to Republicans shifted it farther to the left, the district trended to the Democrats. It remains Democratic, but perhaps is becoming less so: George W. Bush's percentage here increased from 34% in 2000 to 41% in 2004, his second biggest increase in California's 53 districts.

The congressman from the 43d District is Joe Baca, a Democrat first elected in November 1999. He was born in Belen, New Mexico, the youngest of 15 children. His family moved to Barstow, California, in the desert, when he was four years old. His father worked as a laborer for the Santa Fe Railroad; Baca shined shoes at age 10 and later sold newspapers and worked as a janitor. He served in the Army as a paratrooper during the Vietnam War, but did not see combat. After graduating from California State University at Los Angeles, Baca moved to the San Bernardino area, where he spent 15 years as a community affairs representative for General Telephone and Electric and was elected four times to the San Bernardino Community College board. After two unsuccessful campaigns, the persistent Baca was elected to the Assembly in 1992. He became speaker pro tempore of the Assembly, the first Latino to serve in this capacity in California. He earned a reputation as a hard worker, introducing more bills than any other member in his first year, but his aggressiveness rubbed some colleagues the wrong way. A moderate to conservative Democrat, he worked to reduce welfare rolls, lower taxes on middle-income earners and increase penalties for drug dealers. Facing term limits in 1998, he threatened to run in the primary against veteran Congressman George Brown. Instead he ran for the state Senate, spending $2 million to raise his local profile.

His opportunity came in July 1999, when Brown died in his 18th term. His widow Marta Macias Brown ran for the seat. Widows of members had won in 35 of the last 36 such races, but Minority Leader Richard Gephardt refused her request to clear the field, and Baca ran. Baca won the endorsement of organized labor and had a base among Latino voters. Brown attacked Baca for his endorsement by the National Rifle Association. Baca won the all-party primary with 32% of the vote; Brown got 30%, losing by 518 votes. The Republican nominee was real estate developer Elia Pirozzi, who in 1998 lost to Brown 55%-40%. Baca emphasized his centrist voting record and his support for targeted tax cuts, a minimum wage increase and abortion rights. Brown did not endorse Baca. In a light turnout, Baca won 51%-45%.

In the House, Baca had the most conservative voting record of any Latino from California and one of the more conservative voting records of California Democrats. He lobbied for a seat on the Rules Committee, and complained that he had been "bypassed" after Gephardt filled openings there with an African-American from Florida and a white from Massachusetts; Nancy Pelosi, too, did not accommodate his request for a higher-profile assignment. After extensive review, he opposed the resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq. Baca has called for more enforcement of decency standards on Spanish-language broadcast media, and he wants controls on video games that depict nudity, sexual conduct or other content deemed harmful to minors. In June 2004, he protested inland sweeps of illegal immigrants in southern California by Border Patrol agents; Homeland Security Department officials admitted that the sweeps violated agency policy. In 2005, he became vice-chairman of the Hispanic Caucus, and hoped to become a national spokesman on Hispanic issues; he has worked to promote Hispanic representation in corporate boardrooms. He also moved up to ranking Democrat on the Agriculture Subcommittee on Department Operations, Oversight, Dairy, Nutrition and Forestry and said that he will focus on dairy and nutrition policy; dairy production is the chief agricultural business in his district.

In 2000, former Congressman Jay Kim said he was interested in running for this seat: Kim had pleaded guilty to three misdemeanor charges of accepting illegal campaign contributions in 1997, and was beaten in an adjacent district in the 1998 primary by Gary Miller. Republican party officials urged a reluctant Pirozzi to run a third time. Pirozzi beat Kim 80%-20% in the March primary, and Baca beat Pirozzi 60%-35%. With redistricting changes, the district became significantly more Democratic and less competitive. Campaign season attacks on Baca by Los Angeles radio talk show hosts John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou for his stands on illegal aliens had little impact. One Baca son was elected to the Assembly in 2004, and another son has his eye on a seat there.

Committees

• Agriculture (5th of 21 D): Department Operations, Oversight, Nutrition & Forestry (RMM).
• Financial Services (22d of 32 D): Capital Markets, Insurance & Government Sponsored Enterprises; Financial Institutions & Consumer Credit.

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2004	90	70	100	82	40	10	43	12	0	16	--
2003	85	--	100	50	--	22	40	25	--	--	--

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2003 LIB	--	2003 CONS		2004 LIB	--	2004 CONS
Economic	61%	--	39%		77%	--	22%
Social	65%	--	34%		68%	--	31%
Foreign	75%	--	21%		78%	--	21%
For National Journal's complete 2004 Vote Ratings, as well as previous ratings dating back to 1995, please click here.

Key Votes Of The 108th Congress (More Info)
1. Drilling in ANWR Y 2. Approve Bush Tax Cuts N 3. Medicare/Rx Bill N 4. Bar Overtime Pay Regs. Y 5. DC School Vouchers N 6. Ban Human Cloning *		7. Restrict Gun Liability Y  8. Ban Partial-Birth Abortion N  9. Ban Same-Sex Marriage N 10. Fund Iraq War Y 11. Bar Cuba Embargo Funds Y 12. Intelligence Reorg. N

Election Results (More Info)
	Candidate	Total Votes	Percent	Expenditures
2004 general	Joe Baca (D)	86,830	66%	$450,287
	Ed Laning (R)	44,004	34%	$40,391
2004 primary	Joe Baca (D)	unopposed
2002 general	Joe Baca (D)	45,374	66%	$511,550
	Wendy Neighbor (R)	20,821	30%	$6,379
	Other	2,145	3%
Prior winning percentages: 2000 (60%); 1999 (51%)

2004 Presidential Vote Kerry (D) 79,946 (58%) Bush (R) 55,952 (41%)

2000 Presidential Vote Gore (D) 76,710 (64%) Bush (R) 41,272 (34%)

For 1992 and 1996 presidential results in the Forty-Third District, please see the Almanac 2000 online. Please note that these older returns reflect district lines as they existed prior to 2002 redistricting.

• Cook Partisan Voting Index: D +13
• District Size: 193 square miles
• Population in 2000: 639,087; 99.3% urban; 0.7% rural
• Median Household Income: $37,390; 20.7% are below the poverty line
• Occupation: 36.2% blue collar; 46.4% white collar; 17.4% gray collar; 8.9% military veterans
• Race/Ethnic Origin: 23.4% White, 12.4% Black, 3.1% Asian, 0.4% Amer. Indian, 0.3% Hawaiian, 1.9% Two+ races, 0.2% Other, 58.3% Hispanic origin
• Ancestry: 4.6% German, 3.4% Irish, 3.0% English
• Click here for statewide demographic data.