Rebecca Bauer-Kahan: From Attorney To Tri-Valley Assemblywoman

Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, a California assemblywoman serving the 16th district, recently joined The Parth and Pratham Show to discuss local government issues in her district, which includes Tri-Valley. The Parth and Pratham Show is hosted by Parth Joshi and Pratham Dalal, both seniors at Dublin High School.

In her free time, she said she loves to spend time with her family and hike in the beautiful state of California. Bauer-Kahan grew up in the Bay Area, and majored in psychology at the University of Pennsylvania and majored in law at Georgetown University.

She said she never expected to become a politician but always had her mind set on doing the right thing. As a self-described passionate person worried about the environment, Bauer-Kahan served as a lawyer for many years specializing in environmental regulatory law. She transitioned into politics after the 2016 general presidential election.

“I, like many people, realized that the government wasn’t doing things that I felt like were in line with my values,” Bauer-Khan said on The Parth and Pratham Show.

During her time as a politician, assemblywoman Bauer-Kahan helped pass the strongest bill to curb the use of force in the nation. But now, Bauer-Kahan said, the change was not enough and more needs to be done by the California State Senate in regards to both the police use of force and accountability.

Another major item on her agenda is dealing with climate change. Her main motivations come from her kids. Having three children, Bauer-Kahan said she sees the importance of preserving this beautiful world.

“My children [among other children] are going to inherit this earth and I think that they deserve, at the very least, air they can breathe and water they can drink and a world they can inabit,” she said.

The public cares about such an issue, but it is often difficult to get bipartisan support for environmental change, said Bauer-Kahan.

In fact, “the hardest bills to get through Sacramento are the environmental bills,” Bauer-Kahan said. During her time as an environmental regulatory lawyer, Bauer-Kahan worked with companies to help them comply with environmental regulations. Here, she said learned the balance between allowing companies to thrive and ensuring the environment can be protected in the process.

Bauer-Kahan said she is also a progressive on immigration policy, in part due to her past. Her grandparents arrived to the United States in 1939, when the Nazis were occupying Austria.

“This country gave my family a second chance,” said Bauer-Kahan.

She said she feels like she owes something to this country to give others a similar second chance. The turning point for Bauer-Kahan to act arrived in 2017, after President Doanld Trump moved to ban visitors from seven predominantly Muslim countries. Bauer-Kahan was sparked to action when she said she felt the United States was turning from its core values. The assemblywoman assisted in San Francisco's response to the ban, specifically urging local courts to overturn enforcement of the ban in California and fighting to overturn the decision already made in the Supreme Court allowing it’s enforcement.

Bauer-Kahan also has passed bills and become passionate on the topics of women’s reproductive rights and gun control. It is all about values, Bauer-Kahan said. Electing someone “who stays loyal to their values” is essential.

Bauer-Kahan’s priority is her community. As an assemblywoman, Rebecca Bauer Khan relies on her community — the people who elect her. While she said she stays true to her values, Bauer Kahan uses the community to help guide her.

The assemblywoman encourages people to vote. The world is in a divisive place right now, she said, and people are not necessarily voting for what they agree with, but rather against what they disagree with. The assemblywoman said she suggests people get back to voting for their values.

“We need to make sure that we reflect the community right. We need to elect people who look like us, who’ve lived our experiences and we need to make sure that in everybody we talk about the value of this [diverse] incorporations,” she said.

She encourages her constituents to get in contact with her here or by emailing her at rebecca@rebeccaforassembly.com. View the full conversation with the assemblywoman here.