Former Assemblyman Charles “Chuck” Bader died Wednesday, August 28, 2019. He was 79.
A Republican, Bader was forced by the GOP to prematurely end his once-promising career as a legislator to make way for another rising star in the Party of Lincoln and take on a Democratic candidate he could not beat in a quixotic attempt to leap to the California State Senate.
Born in Los Angeles on March 19, 1940, and raised in Pomona where he graduated from Pomona High School, Bader attended and graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles, earning a bachelor of science degree in business administration.
He married Rosanne Mystrom in 1963 and then enlisted in the United States Navy, reaching the rank of lieutenant before discharging.
In 1967, Bader set out to make his way in the world in the real estate business, including becoming heavily involved in property management. In 1973, he formed his own company, Condominium Management Services.
After a stint on the Pomona Planning Commission, Bader successfully ran for city council in 1971, acceding to the position of mayor pro tem, an honorific bestowed on him by his council colleagues, in 1974. In 1977 and again in 1979, he was elected Pomona mayor.
In 1982, he was elected to the California Assembly in the 65th District, representing eastern Pomona, San Bernardino Coujty’s West End, Ontario, a portion of the eastern San Gabriel Mountains and other unincorporated areas of San Bernardino County, Victorville, Adelanto and Hesperia.
In his first term he served on the Assembly’s Housing and Community Development, Economic Development, and New Technologies and Education committees. During his second term he remained on the Education Committee, acceding to the post of vice chairman; left the Economic Development Committee and joined the Ways and Means Committee; and joined the Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials Committee. In his third term, he joined the Revenue and Taxation Committee and left the Ways and Means Committee. In his fourth term, he left the Housing and Community Development Committee, joining the Finance and Insurance Committee, and remaining as a member of the Revenue and Taxation and Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials committees.
He held progressive positions with regard to toxic waste regulation and some educational issues. He toed the Republican Party line with regard to law enforcement and the criminal justice system, as well as resisting Democrats with regard to enlarging the provisions of workers compensation insurance, asserting that the requirements of the program as drafted and put in place by the Democrats imposed costs that would drive certain entrepreneurs out of business. He authored AB 1046 during his first term. AB 1046 dealt with what Bader termed “overly broad” categories of coverage in the “no-fault” insurance program for workers injured on the job provided for in the Democratic-sponsored AB 684, passed in 1982 before his tenure on the Assembly. Bader took exception to the way in which AB 684 stipulated virtually open-ended liability on employers whose workers were injured as a result of companies having removed machine guards on power presses to increase production speed. Bader’s bill did not pass. Bader attempted again in the 1985-1986 session with AB 156 to remove the “power press” exception from the worker’s compensation law. AB156, amidst much controversy, died in the Finance and Insurance Committee without ever coming up for a vote.
In his first term, Bader’s AB 2426 called for altering the process for credentialing teachers, calling for the abolishment of the independent commission responsible for issuing teaching credentials, which he asserted was not using any defined standards in its action. His bill called for placing the credentialing authority under the purview of the state board of education. AB 2426 made it out of the Education Committee on an 8-2 vote, but the Ways and Means Committee did not bring it up for a vote.
Bader’s Assembly Constitutional Amendment 35, introduced as well while he was a freshman legislator, was ultimately unsuccessful. It would have declared all unfunded mandates from the state on local governments voluntary. ACA 35 failed to clear the Assembly Revenue and Taxation Committee.
Bader’s AB 1931, authored in 1987, called for an initial $13 million to be applied to alleviate, by means of a hydraulic siphoning system, the spread of contamination from the Stringfellow toxic waste dump in north Riverside County. The bill failed to make it out of committee.
Bader was respected by both Democrats and Republicans for his expertise in the arena of school construction.
Though he was not particularly successful in achieving passage of much of the legislation he wrote or co-wrote, Bader was seen by a majority of his constituents as being properly motivated and committed, and having the right attitude with regard to many or most of the issues concerning them. His prospects for reelection in the 65th going forward in the 1990 election and in the whatever Republican-leaning Assembly district he would have been redrawn into in 1992 following, and based upon, the 1990 Census, were good to excellent, virtually ensuring he could have remained in the legislature another decade. For more than a year before the 1990 election, higher-ups in the Republican Party at first asked, then with greater firmness requested and then dictated that Bader forsake the Assembly and instead vie for the California Senate so that then-34-year-old Jim Brulte could initiate his political career. Bader, ever the good Republican soldier, entered the 1990 contest in California 34th Senatorial District against Ruben Ayala, who in 1974 had been the first Hispanic since 1911 to be elected to the California Senate. Bader gamely campaigned, and with an infusion of Republican money, made a contest of it. But Ayala had the upper hand all along in the Democratic-leaning 34th, which had a sizable Latino voting base, virtually all of which was committed and loyal to Ayala. Ayala prevailed, 80,949 votes, or 51.79 percent to 75,352 or 48,21 percent. That would prove to be the closest anyone would get to beating Ayala in his 24 years as a state senator. Still the same, the loss knelled the end of Bader’s political career.
In addition to his wife, Rosanne, Bader is survived by sons Ron and daughter in law Christine of Folsom, and Stephen of Aliso Viejo; grandchildren Caitlin, Cade, Cameron, Blake and Carson; sister Nancy Rogers; and nephews and nieces Bill Rogers, Robin Roberts, Julie Losi, Robert Breaux, Jerry Breaux, Nicholas Mystrom, Richard Mystrom, Jennifer Scott, and grandnieces and grandnephews.
Funeral services will be held at 1 p.m. on Saturday, September 14, at Pilgrim Congregational Church in Pomona with a reception following.
-Mark Gutglueck