Baker funeral set for Sunday in Elkton
Conservative Democrat chaired Judicial Proceedings for 17 years

by margie hyslop
Staff Writer

The funeral for former state Sen. Walter M. Baker, who chaired the Judicial Proceedings Committee from 1987 to 2003, is scheduled for Sunday in Elkton.

Baker, who was 84, died April 17 at Christiana Hospital in Newark, Del.

Reached at the family home Thursday in Elkton, his wife, Jean, said that her husband’s stomach problems exacerbated heart troubles. Baker had rallied after treatment at the hospital, but then his condition deteriorated, she said.

A conservative Democrat who was born in Port Deposit, Baker grew up working on the family farm and gained a reputation in the Maryland Senate, to which he was elected in 1978, as a down-to-earth lawmaker and no-nonsense chairman of Judicial Proceedings.

“You always knew where he stood,” his wife said.

Baker was famous for putting what he deemed a “bad bill” in his drawer, where it would stay without a committee vote.

“He had an abundance of common sense and was very good at understanding the potential unintended consequences” of bills that someone else thought were good ideas, said Jeremy McCoy, who worked with Baker for five years as co-counsel to the committee.

That tendency put Baker at odds more than once with more liberal Democrats, including governors William Donald Schaefer and Parris N. Glendening, over issues such as gun control that were unpopular with Baker and many Marylanders in the five largely rural, upper Eastern Shore counties he represented -- Caroline, Cecil, Kent, Queen Anne’s and Talbot.

“He had a reputation of being a gruff curmudgeon and did little to dispel that, probably because it worked for him as chairman,” McCoy said.

But “that couldn’t be further from the truth in terms of how he treated his staff … and I think legislators on the committee would say the same thing.” McCoy said he learned how to be a lawyer from Baker and regarded him as a “surrogate father” after his own father died several years ago.

Sen. Brian E. Frosh, who became Judicial Proceedings chairman after Baker lost a redrawn District 36 Senate seat to Republican E.J. Pipkin, said he inherited a staff who loved Baker, and “that’s very telling.”

“He and I disagreed on more stuff than we agreed on, but he was universally respected,” said Frosh (D-Dist. 16) of Bethesda.

Baker was a teenager when he went to work as a state police barracks clerk in 1944 and as a Coca-Cola salesman in 1945. He owned and operated a car repair shop from 1945 to 1950, according to an obituary supplied by Hicks Home for Funerals in Elkton.

And he served in the U.S. Army from 1950 to 1953, rising to staff sergeant. After returning home, Baker married, drove a taxi, worked as a claims adjuster and graduated in 1960 from both Washington College and the University of Maryland School of Law.

Just a few years later, he was elected state’s attorney for Cecil County, serving in the post from 1963 through 1966.

Although he was born poor, “he became fairly well-to-do because he out-hustled everybody” and because “he was always able to figure out what he needed to know,” McCoy said.

In addition to his wife of 58 years, Baker’s survivors include a son, Stephen, who is a District Court judge in Cecil County, and a daughter, Nancy.

Funeral services are scheduled for 2 p.m. Sunday at Elkton United Methodist Church in Elkton.

Visitation is at Hicks Home for Funerals in Elkton from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday.

mhyslop@gazette.net

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