Rebecca Bauer-Kahan

Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan is a Democratic member of the California State Assembly representing District 16, which spans from the Lamorinda communities to the Tri-Valley region of the San Francisco Bay Area ^[1,2]. First elected in 2018 after a career as an environmental attorney and law professor, she has authored over 50 pieces of signed legislation and currently chairs the Assembly Committee on Privacy and Consumer Protection, where she has become a leading voice on artificial intelligence regulation ^[2,3]. The granddaughter of Holocaust refugees, Bauer-Kahan has drawn on her family's story to champion civil rights, abortion-related services access, firearms restrictions, and environmental protection ^[3,4]. With a 20% CFC Biblical Values Scorecard rating, her legislative record has diverged from the California Family Council's worldview framework, particularly on the sanctity of life (Chapter 6) — where her work expanding abortion access through legislation such as the Reproductive Privacy Act directly contradicts CFC's conviction that human life possesses full moral worth from fertilization. CFC extensively opposed her AB 2223, which CFC called an 'infanticide bill' for its original provisions regarding perinatal death investigations — a measure that drew record public opposition and was ultimately amended after intense advocacy from CFC and allied organizations. Her record CFC's conviction that human life possesses full moral worth from fertilization.

Rebecca Beth Bauer-Kahan was born on October 28, 1978, in Portola Valley, California. She grew up in the Bay Area attending public schools and went on to earn a bachelor of arts in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania in 2000, followed by a juris doctor from Georgetown University Law Center in 2004 ^[1,2].

Bauer-Kahan entered politics after the 2016 presidential election, running for the California State Assembly in 2018 against two-term Republican incumbent Catharine Baker. She won the general election by a narrow margin of 51 percent to 49 percent, part of the broader Democratic wave that swept California that year ^[1,5]. Environmental issues and education were central to her campaign, and she earned endorsements from the Sierra Club and the California Teachers Association ^[5,6].

Her 17.8% Biblical Values Scorecard rating across 104 scored floor votes reflects consistent divergence from CFC's worldview framework. Her voting record has supported abortion access expansion over the sanctity of human life, government-directed education over parental authority and school choice, and progressive social mandates over religious liberty protections.

As Chair of the Assembly Committee on Privacy and Consumer Protection, Bauer-Kahan has emerged as one of California's most prominent voices on artificial intelligence regulation ^[2,3,5]. She introduced AB 2930 in 2024, a sweeping bill that would have required developers and deployers of automated decision tools to assess and mitigate algorithmic discrimination across housing, finance, insurance, and health care.