Walter Arnold Baker

Walter Baker
Associate Justice of the Kentucky Supreme Court
In office
April 15, 1996 – November 25, 1996
Nominated byPaul E. Patton
Preceded byCharles H. Reynolds
Succeeded byWilliam S. Cooper
Member of the Kentucky Senate
from the 9th district
In office
January 1, 1989 – April 15, 1996
Preceded byJoe Lane Travis
Succeeded byRichie Sanders
In office
January 1, 1972 – June 15, 1981
Preceded byJ. C. Carter
Succeeded byJoe Lane Travis
Member of the Kentucky House of Representatives
from the 23rd district
In office
January 1, 1968 – January 1, 1972
Personal details
Born
Walter Arnold Baker

(1937-02-20)February 20, 1937
Columbia, Kentucky
DiedMay 24, 2010(2010-05-24) (aged 73)
Glasgow, Kentucky
Resting placeGlasgow Municipal Cemetery
Political partyRepublican
SpouseJane S. Helm
Alma materHarvard College
Harvard Law School
ProfessionLawyer and politician
Civilian awardsU.S. Department of Defense Outstanding Public Service Award
Military service
Branch/serviceKentucky Air National Guard
U.S. Air Force Reserve
Years of service1961–1981
RankLieutenant colonel
Military awardsMeritorious Service Medal (twice)

Walter Arnold Baker (February 20, 1937 – May 24, 2010) was an American lawyer and politician who served in both houses of the Kentucky General Assembly, in the presidential administration of Ronald Reagan, and on the Kentucky Supreme Court. A graduate of Harvard Law School, Baker also served as a judge advocate general in the Kentucky Air National Guard for 20 years.

Baker's political career began with his election to the Kentucky House of Representatives in 1968, concurrent with the election of fellow Republican Louie B. Nunn as governor. Baker supported Nunn's efforts to raise the state sales tax to benefit education, the first of several education-related causes he would champion. In 1972, Baker was elected to the Kentucky Senate and was three times chosen as the Republican caucus chair. He resigned from the Senate in 1981 to take Reagan's appointment as assistant general counsel for International Affairs in the Department of Defense. He left that post in 1983 and was presented with the Department's Outstanding Public Service award. He narrowly lost a bid to return to his old Senate seat in 1984, but unseated the incumbent in 1989, spending the interim serving on the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence and Kentucky Advocates for Higher Education. In his second stint in the Senate, his major accomplishment was helping to write the 1990 Kentucky Education Reform Act.

In 1996, Governor Paul E. Patton appointed Baker to fill a vacancy on the Kentucky Supreme Court occasioned by the death of Justice Charles H. Reynolds, but he served only a few months before losing a special election for the remainder of Reynolds' term. In 1997, Patton appointed Baker to the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education, a post he held until 2008. Baker died of cancer on May 24, 2010.