After Rough Start, Baugh Gains in Sacramento

Scott Baugh came to the California Assembly two years ago, a runaway train on a wrong-way track.

He was indicted on felony campaign wrongdoing charges a few weeks after taking office. Some colleagues shunned him. His career barely rolling, Baugh seemed headed downhill fast.

But a funny thing happened on the way to political oblivion. Baugh started winning friends and influencing legislation.

After a disastrous debut, the Huntington Beach Republican regrouped and enjoyed a productive 1997. Eight of his 18 bills were signed into law, a higher percentage than any of his statehouse colleagues from Orange County.

He curbed California’s much-maligned smog check rules and helped negotiate a monumental accord to rebuild the seismically suspect San Francisco Bay Bridge.

Yes, Scott Baugh could yet be convicted of election finance crimes. He could still lose his Assembly seat, his law license and maybe even go to jail. But the 35-year-old conservative is having too much fun in the state Capitol to get gloomy.

Colleagues who once assumed Baugh was the poster boy for political corruption now call him a friend, impressed by his smarts and inquisitive nature, amused by his occasional antics.

His personality is not easily pigeonholed. It was the barrel-chested Baugh who recently earned the unofficial title of Strongest Man in the Capitol during one late-night break from floor session, using one hand to hoist two phone books balanced at the end of a broomstick.

It is Baugh, a lifelong Baptist who attended Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, who confesses to trying marijuana during his teen years, conceding that “we all made mistakes in our youth. And, yes, I did inhale.”

And it is Baugh, a churchgoing foe of abortion, who shrugs off the threats of antiabortion zealots and votes for a state budget that includes abortion funding. “If you take the ostrich approach, you get nothing done,” Baugh explained. “You basically take yourself out of the debate.”

Even a few of the majority Democrats, who had a field day after Baugh was indicted, now have warm things to say, calling him a straight shooter, a listener, a pragmatist.

“Like the average person who reads a newspaper, I had a negative impression of this fellow, based on all the shenanigans down in Orange County,” said Assemblyman Bob Hertzberg (D-Sherman Oaks). “But I’ve got to tell you: I like him. He’s smart. He’s reasonable to deal with. As far as Republicans go, he’s tops on my list.”

Baugh’s philosophy is simple. He approaches a political enemy and hears them out. “If you’re willing to listen to their point of view,” Baugh said, “they’re more than willing to be open-minded.”

He picked up that personable, pull-up-a-chair attitude in his youth.

Baugh grew up on a 10-acre farm in Redding, replete with chickens and pigs. His father ran a linen supply business and also leased ranchland where he ran 500 head of cattle. The fourth of five boys, Baugh was raised on a mix of hard work, religion and sports. He was a middle linebacker on the high school football team, earning the nickname Dr. Death.

Like lots of kids at his Baptist church, he headed off to Falwell’s university in Lynchburg, Va., amid the boom years of the Moral Majority and Reaganomics. His appetite for politics was whetted by an internship in Congress during his senior year, though he never really had any grand ambitions to run for office.

Baugh got his law degree, practicing with a private firm in Sacramento, then went to work in the corporate offices of Union Pacific Railroad. He continued to follow national politics, but didn’t dream of getting into it any time soon.

That all changed in 1995.

Almost on a whim, he agreed to volunteer in the recall of Assemblywoman Doris Allen (R-Cypress), who had angered Republicans by dealing with the Democrats to become Assembly speaker that summer. When the GOP began casting about for a candidate, they latched onto Baugh.

He rose from nowhere, an obscure corporate attorney with little involvement in Orange County politics, to capture Allen’s legislative seat in the November 1995 recall election. Baugh’s victory gave Republicans the key vote they needed to capture control of the lower house.

But problems cropped up for Baugh even before he was elected. The Orange County district attorney began looking into allegations that Republicans had put a ringer Democrat on the ballot to water down the opposition vote and ensure a GOP victory. It didn’t help Baugh that the Democrat, Laurie Campbell, was a personal friend.

After months of investigation and a well-publicized raid of Baugh’s residence, the newly elected assemblyman was indicted on 22 felony and misdemeanor counts involving his campaign finance reports. They included charges he illegally concealed a $1,000 cash donation from Campbell and her husband until after election day.

Right now, Baugh is in the middle of a preliminary hearing on the charges. But he exudes confidence that he will ultimately be exonerated.

Baugh has been toiling for nearly two years to win vindication, both in the courtroom and the Capitol. After putting in his day as a lawmaker, he routinely returns to his office late in the evening and spends hours poring over documents pertaining to his criminal case.

“We’d have a full day, we’d go out and hit a couple of receptions, I’d go home, and he’d come back to the Capitol and work until 11 or 12 at night on his case,” recalls Jeff Sauls, Baugh’s legislative aide. “That was pretty typical.”

Assemblyman Bernie Richter (R-Chico), a staunch ally, believes Baugh became the unwitting target of a district attorney investigation that originally aimed to bring down high-ranking Orange County Republicans involved in the mess.

Three low-level Republican operatives have pleaded guilty to misdemeanor crimes, but the only Republican lawmaker charged with anything has been Baugh. Richter believes Baugh will be vindicated, “but it has been a terrible, terrible burden for him to carry. I don’t see how anyone could function and do their job with that hanging over their head.”

By most accounts Baugh has done just fine.

“His work ethic has helped him overcome a lot of the early negative impressions,” said Assemblyman Dick Ackerman (R-Fullerton). “I’ve been impressed by what he’s taken on.”

Probably Baugh’s most notable legislative achievement was a bill that allows the owners of new cars to avoid irksome smog tests for the first five years, an exemption that should save Californians $350 million in fees. The measure also caps repairs at $450 for cars that fail a smog test.

Baugh, who got the idea after a contentious public hearing in Huntington Beach that he almost shut down twice, suggests the huge savings to the public “is analogous to a tax cut of that size, because it will give people that money to spend on other things and help the economy.”

He also helped save Southern California taxpayers a chunk of change during negotiations over how to finance a new eastern span for the Bay Bridge. As vice chairman of the Assembly Transportation Committee, he pushed for the Bay Area to absorb a bigger cut of the costs, reining in initial proposals that had Southern California paying a huge share.

“The result was favorable for Southern California,” said state Sen. Quentin L. Kopp, the San Francisco independent who chairs the Senate Transportation Committee. “And he was largely responsible for that. He did first-rate work.”

Baugh also proved adept this year at pork-barrel politics. He won $100,000 for some new beachfront restrooms in Huntington Beach and helped get more than $800,000 included in the state budget for sand replenishment in Seal Beach.

He also pushed through legislation sought by Huntington Beach limiting a city’s liability in roller-blading accidents. Another Baugh bill will allow sanitation districts in Orange County to more easily consolidate their administration and operations.

Proving that politics is often personal, Baugh also pushed a trio of bills stemming from his own legal difficulties. Only one was signed into law, a measure that requires prosecutors to reveal exculpatory evidence to grand juries.

The grand jury indictment against Baugh was dismissed by a Superior Court judge because prosecutors failed to give both sides of the case. The district attorney refiled the charges without returning to the grand jury, but Baugh will try to get them thrown out again at the conclusion of his preliminary hearing.

On this exculpatory evidence issue, his biggest allies were the Democrats, Baugh notes. “I think they often have more sensitivity to civil rights and the plight of the accused than do conservative Republicans.”

In his own caucus, Baugh hasn’t always fared so well. Democrats say he often would negotiate agreements with them in his role as transportation committee vice chairman, then have the deals undone by Republican cohorts. “He wasn’t able to deliver on substantive issues,” said one Democrat. “We always felt he was subject to pressure and would buckle.”

But he has also forged a contrarian’s reputation among his GOP brethren. Behind closed doors, Baugh isn’t shy with his views.

“He’s not afraid to speak up at caucus lunches and say something is a stupid idea,” Ackerman said. “I admire that.” Added Richter: “Scott is not afraid of his own shadow like some members are.”

Despite his credentials as a conservative Christian, Baugh has occasionally jousted with some of the more strident members of that camp on issues like abortion funding and homosexuality.

He believes abortion foes need to focus on winnable battles, like banning last-trimester abortions. Chided for failing to oppose the state budget because it contained abortion money, Baugh pointed out to one moralist that the California Supreme Court has ruled against past efforts to strip the funds. Moreover, he reasoned, “Jesus Christ often dined with tax collectors and sinners.”

On gay rights, he veers toward a libertarian view.

“You shouldn’t give them any special rights or privileges, but they also shouldn’t be banned to an island,” Baugh said. “You don’t hunt them down and ostracize them.”