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Eric Bauman, a grumpy, tireless political operative who led two of California’s most powerful democratic organizations before resigning amid allegations of fraud, passed away Monday.
His family said in a statement that Baumann died at UCLA West Valley Medical Center after a long illness. He was 66 years old.
Born in the Bronx to an Army doctor and registered nurse, Bauman went to military school and moved to Hollywood just before he turned 18.
Motivated in part by the AIDS crisis, Bauman worked for the Stonewall Democratic Club Los Angeles, a progressive political group, and was elected president of the organization in 1994.
Bauman has grown the LA County Democrats as chairman from 2000 to 2017 into political forces, expanding the number of Democrats who win elections at all levels, from the Water Supply Committee to the U.S. House of Representatives.
“I changed the LA Democrats from an organization that costs $50,000 a year to an organization that costs $1.5 million a year,” he told reporters in 2011.
With his Bronx emotion and a gold signature ring on his pinky finger that he twisted while under pressure, Bauman has built his reputation as an old-fashioned party boss who straightens bad news to you. Democrats compared him to Ray Liotta, and some called him the “godfather of democratic politics.”
“People always come to me on the street and think I’m Joe Pessi,” he told The Times in 2017.
Bauman ran for state Democratic chair in 2017. After a bruise election that exposed fractures between the party’s progressive and founding wings, Bauman was elected with just 62 votes.
He was the first openly gay and first Jew to chair the party.
“I’m not wearing a button saying, ‘Looking at me, I’m gay,'” Bauman said in a 2009 interview with UCLA Films and TV Archives. But he said, “I never recognize my partner from the podium. It’s in my bio. It’s part of who I am.”
His high point in office came in the 2018 midterm elections, when California Democrats turned seven seats in the U.S. House and won a rejection supermajority in the state legislature.
Bauman said he wanted to overturn the “jungle primary” system approved by California voters. Bauman argued that Democrats should choose their own candidates rather than spending the millions of dollars they are fighting in the primary.
In late 2018, The Times reported that Baumann made crude sexual comments, citing 10 party members and political activists, engaging in unwanted, moving or physical threats in a professional setting.
Baumann said he had planned to resign and seek treatment for health issues and alcohol use. State Democrats fired top staff after the allegations and paid more than $380,000 to resolve a sexual misconduct lawsuit brought on by three accusers. A party spokesperson did not respond to a request for a statement on Tuesday regarding Bauman’s death.
After his resignation, Bauman disappeared from public life for several years. Recently, he began hosting a radio show called “The Uncommon Sense Democrat” at the Inland Empire’s KCAA-AM 1050.
In the mid-2000s, when Republicans were still representing many suburban areas in Los Angeles County, Bauman established the “Red Zone Program” in the LA County Democrats, pouring money and volunteers into Democrats running to seats at GOP bases.
The investment was a gamble, but they built relationships and better candidates. And sometimes, the candidates for Longshot actually won, said Miguel Santiago, a former state legislator who first got involved with the party in the early 2000s.
“He was really hungry for a democratic victory,” Santiago said. “There were no seats left at the table, whether it was a community college seat, a school board race, a waterboard race.”
Bauman also worked to strengthen relations with organised labor, the California Democrats’ strongest ally, building voter registration and turnout.
State Sen. Mark Gonzalez said Baumann was chairman of the county party, where young volunteers spent countless hours entering information about newly registered voters into the party database.
The data comes from a booth set up outside of a citizenship ceremony where Democrats can register to vote as Democrats, he said. Bauman sent each individual signed cards to congratulate them and welcomed them to the party.
“It touched people and showed them that they were important,” Gonzalez said.
Bauman also worked for Governor Gray Davis and Insurance Secretary John Galamendi, and has worked as a consultant for several Congressional speakers, including Anthony Rendon of Los Angeles and Toni Atkins of San Diego.
He is survived by his 42-year husband and partner Michael Andreichuck, and his father and sisters Richard and Roya Bauman.
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