Joe Baca

The bulk of Baca's former territory became the 35th District, though his home in Rialto was placed in the 31st District.

Baca opted to run in the 35th, and finished first in the all-party primary with 46.7 percent of the vote.

His nearest opponent, State Senator Gloria Negrete McLeod, took 34 percent.

In the general election, Negrete McLeod defeated Baca, taking 56 percent to Baca's 44 percent.

A few weeks leading up to the election McLeod's campaign benefited from $3.2 million in independent expenditures from the Federal Super PAC of billionaire Michael Bloomberg, who was Mayor of New York City at that time.

The Super PAC ran negative advertisements in newspapers, radio, and television accusing Baca of being soft on crime and causing perchlorate water contamination in drinking water.

Bloomberg had become unhappy with Baca because he had not been supportive of Bloomberg's efforts for stronger federal laws for gun control and the enactment of federal registration.

Joseph Natalio Baca Sr. (born January 23, 1947) is an American Democratic politician who served as the U.S. representative for southwestern San Bernardino County (including Fontana, Rialto, Ontario and parts of the city of San Bernardino) from 1999 to 2013.

Baca was born in Belen, New Mexico in 1947, the youngest of 15 children in a primarily Spanish-speaking household.

His father was a railroad laborer.

The family moved to Barstow, California when Joe was young, where he shined shoes at age 10, delivered newspapers, and later worked as a laborer for the Santa Fe Railroad, until he was drafted in 1966, serving in the United States Army until 1968.

He did not serve in Vietnam.

Following military service, Baca attended Barstow Community College and went on to receive his bachelor's degree in sociology from California State University, Los Angeles.

He worked for 15 years in community relations with General Telephone and Electric.

In 1979, he was the first Latino elected to the board of trustees for the San Bernardino Valley College District.

He was elected to the State Assembly in 1992, and to the State Senate in 1998.

He served on the House Financial Services Committee, where he was a member of the Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance, and Government Sponsored Enterprises, and the Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit.

Rep. Baca also served on the House Agriculture Committee, where he was the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Departmental Operations, Oversight, Nutrition and Forestry.

Rep. Baca was the Chair of the CHC Corporate America Task Force, which aims to increase Hispanic representation in corporate America.

He created and co-chaired the Congressional Sex and Violence in the Media Caucus.

Other caucus memberships included the Congressional Diabetes Caucus, the Military/ Veterans Caucus, the Native American Caucus and the U.S.-Mexico Caucus.

Prior to his time in the House of Representatives, Baca served in the California Senate from 1998 to 1999, and the California State Assembly from 1992 to 1998.

He currently serves on the Rialto City Council.

Baca won a full term in 2000 with 59% of the vote.

After the 2000 census, the district was renumbered as the 43rd and reconfigured as a majority-Hispanic district.

Baca was handily reelected from this redrawn district in 2002, and did not face another close contest again until 2012.

After the 2010 United States Census, the Citizens Redistricting Commission significantly redrew California's congressional map.

In 2011, Rep. Baca became a co-sponsor of Bill H.R.3261 otherwise known as the Stop Online Piracy Act.

The same year, he voted for the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 as part of a controversial provision that allows the government and the military to indefinitely detain American citizens and others without trial.

In March 2012, Baca and Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) introduced a bill that would force video game companies to put warning labels on their products.

H.R. 4204, the Violence in Video Games Labeling Act, would compel game companies to label their products with "WARNING: Exposure to violent video games has been linked to aggressive behavior".

A few months after Baca was elected to the State Senate, Congressman George Brown, Jr. died after a long illness.

Baca finished first in a seven-way primary, but fell far short of a majority due to the presence of two minor Democratic candidates.

In the runoff, Baca defeated Republican Elia Pirozzi with 50.4%.

Baca ran again, changing to the 31st District in 2014 but came fifth with 11.2%.

In 2014, Baca also ran for Mayor of Fontana.

He lost in a landslide and subsequently announced his retirement from politics, but made a comeback to the Rialto City Council in 2022.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Baca, chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, directed Caucus funds from its PAC BOLDPAC (Building Our Leadership Diversity) to the unsuccessful California campaigns of his sons, Joe Baca, Jr. and Jeremy Baca.

In June 2015, Baca switched his affiliation to the Republican Party, citing his "core Christian" and pro-business beliefs.

In January 2018, Baca switched his affiliation back to the Democratic Party, saying that "in my heart, I've always been a Democrat with a 100 percent voting record for labor."