About Richard Baker

A native and lifelong Louisianian, Richard Baker has made a career of starting early, demonstrating resolve, and persisting until achieving success.  The son of a World War II naval aviator turned Methodist minister, Baker was pursuing compassionate conservative causes before it was cool -- raising money for the Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank and Race for the Cure.  He has also shown a conservative's tenacity for results, and the necessity to go the extra mile to protect taxpayers and fight for what's right for people in Louisiana's Sixth Congressional District.  (See going the extra mile here.)

Early Riser

Can you recall what you were doing when you were twenty-three years old?  Consider this: by the time Richard Baker reached the "ripe old age" of twenty-three he was graduated from LSU (Baton Rouge, 1971), he had married his sweetheart, the former Kay Carpenter, had his first of two children, Brandon, had started his own business, Baker Real Estate Agency, and had run for and won a seat in the Louisiana House of Representatives.

It would be understandable if things slowed down a bit for him at that point, but they didn't.  On the home front, a second child, daughter Julie, was born.  And at the State House, what Richard Baker accomplished in his first few years is now something akin to legend.

Lanny Keller, columnist for The Advocate and former press aide for Bob Livingston, has perhaps best chronicled Baker's efforts in those years to weed political cronyism out of state politics (no small feat in Louisiana), writing that "Baker, as a young state representative" in 1974 (at the age of twenty-five) was the author of "one of the most significant reforms in Louisiana's political history, the highway priority program."

To understand what compelled Richard Baker to seek to accomplish so much so early one needs only to look more closely at the details of that first legislative success.  Louisianans who remember know that there was a time when state spending on roads and highways was little more than a matter of remaining in the governor's favor.  Vote with him on this bill -- your district might win a new stretch of road.  Vote against him on that bill -- get used to potholes, and don't plan on enjoying the aroma of freshly poured asphalt.

With the highway priority program, Baker ushered in objective criteria for capital outlays for road work, based on need, not greed.  The program was also a reform plan whose constant guide was ensuring the state made the best use of taxpayer dollars.  For the positive impact of his effort Baker was inducted into the state of Louisiana's Transportation Hall of Fame.

As a member of Congress, Baker has held true to his roots as a member of the Veterans Committee, making sure America makes good on its promise to those who have given service, and on the Transportation Committee, where he fights to bring a fair share of his constituents' tax dollars home to fuel economic development and address vital traffic and infrastructure needs.

The highway priority plan celebrated its 25th anniversary in 1999.  Baker has long since moved on to a career as a U.S. Representative (first elected in 1986).  But in many ways the occasion shows how things have come full circle for Richard Baker.  Changing party affiliation from conservative Democrat to Republican prior to that 1986 run for Congress, Baker now says, was the result of having "Edwin Edwards pushing me and Ronald Reagan pulling me, and together they made an irresistible force."

Accordingly, in his congressional career Baker has forged a record as a solid conservative lawmaker, reflecting the values of his constituents and fighting for their best interests.  (See information on Baker's conservative record here.)

And since 2000, he has been engaged in pushing the biggest reform bill of his congressional career, again trying to protect taxpayers, this time from potential losses to the quasi-governmental housing giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  As usual, Baker was pushing his reforms well before an accounting scandal was reported at Freddie Mac in June 2003.

A 'thoughtful critic of Wall Street'

When it comes to matters of finance, and the impact of those issues on the general public, Richard Baker has made a career out of being a pioneer and getting out in front of the field.  He founded his own real estate agency at the age of 22, and, as was noted, he was elected Representative to the Louisiana state legislature at 23, and crafted the most sweeping reforms for responsible use of taxpayer dollars for state financing of highway projects by the age of 25.

When he was elected to Congress in the wake of the Savings & Loan debacle that devastated Louisiana, Baker took on the task of becoming the House banking committee’s resident expert on the somewhat obscure but extremely important issue of “systemic risk” in the financial system, vowing never again to see taxpayers tapped to pick up the tab for billion-dollar bailouts of problems they played no part in making.

By 1998 it was Baker - and not the other way around - who wrote to alert the Federal Reserve of his concerns about systemic dangers posed by Long-Term Capital Management, more than a month before the regulators took action to prop up the markets when the highly leveraged hedge fund collapsed.  Similarly, beginning in 2000 and well before recent revelations of accounting irregularities at Freddie Mac, Baker has fought for major regulatory reforms of the quasi-governmental mortgage finance giant and its big sister Fannie Mae, whose combined $1.5-trillion debt most believe would have to be paid by taxpayers in the event of their default.

In 2001, when the Banking committee was expanded to encompass all Financial Services, Baker was tapped as chairman of a newly created Capital Markets “super” Subcommittee - with broad jurisdiction over Wall Street, Insurance, and Government-Sponsored Enterprises like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  Almost immediately Baker began implementing a philosophical and policy agenda for the financial marketplace that combined a Reagan-esque pro-growth, pro-competition empowerment of the individual consumer, with a Louisiana brand of free-market conservative populism.

As early as February 2001, long before national headlines filled with stories of Wall Street troubles, Baker was announcing an inquiry into financial analyst conflicts-of-interest, and laying out a working philosophy for his subcommittee that appears prophetic in retrospect.  “Clearly the few should not have unfair advantage over the many when it comes to crucial, market-sensitive information,” he declared in announcing his first policy agenda.  “Also, we must send a signal to those who would exploit or circumvent laws with the intent to defraud investors that we will work toward strict prosecution of offenders. However, the greatest consumer protection against unfairness, fraud or unintended loss is investor education that helps promote informed choices. I plan to utilize this subcommittee as a bully pulpit for investors -- to make sure that all appropriate information is available, accessible, understandable, and easily identifiable by all investors."

Beginning in June 2001, Baker’s hearings on market research focused attention on certain financial analysts who seemed more concerned with attracting investment banking business to their firm by promoting a stock than they did with giving investors objective analysis, and led to sweeping reforms enacted by the NASD and endorsed by the SEC to strengthen the integrity and independence of market research.

When the Enron scandal broke, Baker’s subcommittee held the first hearing into the matter, and as other accounting-related abuses came to light, Baker was instrumental in crafting historic corporate accountability and market reform legislation (the Sarbanes-Oxley Act), signed into law by President Bush, and including Baker’s proposal for establishing the Fair Fund, a federal restitution fund for defrauded investors.

As a result of his efforts, in December 2001, Baker was named to Smart Money magazine’s list of the world’s 30 most influential people in investing, who have "the greatest impact on your financial health."

The Baton Rouge Advocate has called him a "thoughtful critic of Wall Street" and in more than half a dozen editorials praised the work he has done and the solid leadership he has provided on financial issues.  (See What the Advocate Says here.)

But whether it's at home working on projects to improve the quality of life in Louisiana, legislating for conservative public policy, or fighting for Wall Street reforms in Washington, Baker's greatest influence comes because of his unrelenting pursuit, once he starts out on a path toward what is right and good, never to relent until the mission is accomplished.