ANNAPOLIS -- The mugger who stole Jean Baker's purse last month got away with $400 in cash, some credit cards, assorted keys -- and the governor's assault weapons ban.

Mrs. Baker happens to be married to Sen. Walter M. Baker, the Cecil County Democrat who heads the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee. While Mrs. Baker struggled with the thief, Mr. Baker bashed him over the head with an umbrella, until the purse strap broke and the thief bolted.

The next day, Mr. Baker told Gov. William Donald Schaefer that the assault weapons ban was dead, although his committee will not hold hearings on the bill until Tuesday.

His reasoning: Law-abiding citizens should have access to arms. And he isn't swayed by arguments that a mugger might be more likely to have an Uzi, while the citizen wields a semiautomatic umbrella.

Call him Genghis Khan or Attila the Hun. After all, his colleagues have, sometimes in official resolutions. Mr. Baker just laughs, as he quietly kills bills that offend his libertarian sensibilities.

A committee chairman since 1986, Mr. Baker has always been the scourge of gun control. This year, his influence extends to a domestic violence bill proposed by the governor, as well as California emissions standards for cars.

In fact, Mr. Baker may be the single greatest obstacle to the governor's legislative package, much of which must move through Judicial Proceedings. Mr. Schaefer won the first battle -- a helmet bill for motorcyclists -- but Mr. Baker is expected to exert more influence over the gun bills. He also was able to amend the domestic violence bill, so it was more palatable to conservatives.

"I have a philosophy, I'm predictable," says Mr. Baker. "I'm a strong believer in individual rights and a strong believer that we have responsibilities that go with those rights."

Translated, he's a pro-gun, pro-death penalty, anti-helmet law, anti-tax workaholic, who also was a floor leader for the 1991 abortion rights bill.

Still, some feminists have been less than impressed by Mr. Baker's contention that he is a social moderate, complaining about comments Mr. Baker made during a hearing on the domestic violence bill. Jean Baker, his wife of 37 years, rankles at the idea the senator might be a sexist.

"A lot of times, those females get angry because he doesn't agree with them, and they don't want to hear his explanation," said Mrs. Baker, who is in Annapolis almost as much as her husband. "He's very consistent. If you ask him a direct question, he will give you a direct answer."

His objections to the domestic violence bill, Mr. Baker said, were strictly legal ones. He felt the bill was poorly drafted and suggested several amendments.

And when a committee member balked, Mr. Baker warned: "You're disagreeing with your chairman, and I worked very hard on this. I'm afraid [the governor's office] is going to say, 'We beat you on this.' "

"Every legislative body needs a Walter Baker, someone with a great deal of common sense," said Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller. "He sometimes has to be reminded there's a bigger picture, but so do all of us."

Del. John Arnick, the House Judiciary chairman who often sees his committee's work stopped dead in Mr. Baker's realm, admires him.

He did note, however, that Mr. Baker is "not particularly quick to change things that have worked well in the past. He likes to move a little slower when it comes to major change."

'Freshwater turns to salt'

If Mr. Baker tends to cling to the past, his deep roots in Cecil County may offer some explanation. He is an eighth-generation native of the Upper Shore county, a place some Marylanders know only as the last leg of a trip to Pennsylvania.

The county straddles Maryland's two shores. Its geography is similarly bisected, changing from rolling farmlands in the west to the flat, marshy land of the Eastern Shore.

"We have a saying in Cecil County," Mr. Baker says. "The Eastern Shore don't want us and the Western Shore won't have us." (The old saying also is quoted as, "The Eastern Shore don't want us and we won't have the Western Shore.")

"We are not traditional Eastern shoremen. We're farmers, not too much of a watermen tradition. It's where the freshwater turns to salt."

Mr. Baker was born Sept. 23, 1927, outside Port Deposit, the fourth of 12 children. His family had a small farm on which they grew their own food, plowing the land with two mules.

They had no indoor plumbing and no electricity until Mr. Baker was 21. His father was a laborer who, in his best year, earned $1,260.

It was a hard life and it left its mark, said retired District Court Judge Walter E. Buck Jr., who has known Mr. Baker since they were teen-agers. "When you grow up in a time of Depression and war, you don't come out of it too starry-eyed."

To make extra money, Mr. Baker and his brothers sold milk along a rural delivery route.

Mr. Baker graduated from high school, but it would be nine years before he made it to college. He took the Washington College entrance exam and flunked it, then convinced the registrar to enroll him anyway. Mr. Baker went on to win the Sadler Award, the highest prize given in political science.

Married as a sophomore, he worked constantly to support his family. A son was born while he was in college, a daughter during law school. It was during law school that Mr. Baker collapsed and was diagnosed as a diabetic. The rigid attention to diet and insulin injections is notable only because it made him fiercely punctual, Mr. Baker says.

In 1960, his college education finished, he returned to Cecil County, where he was state's attorney from 1963 to 1966. Later, he would work as a defense attorney.

In 1978, the former president of the Young Democrats Club at Washington College ran for the Senate seat in the 36th District. He was not well-known in the other three counties that make up his district -- Kent, Queen Anne's and Talbot. Del. R. Clayton Mitchell Jr., now House Speaker, was a valuable ally.

Mr. Mitchell recalls that Mr. Baker was an old-fashioned campaigner -- visiting church suppers, volunteer fire departments, relying on his fellow Rotarians.

Even in 1986, when Mr. Baker faced perhaps his toughest re-election bid, he didn't waver in his methods. He told Mr. Miller he sent out only one letter to his constituents, basically saying: "If you like the job I've been doing, re-elect me. If you don't, vote for someone else."

Randolph Scott

Senator Baker likes to position himself as being above the political fray in Annapolis. But he is a cagey player in State House games. The major setback in his 13-year career ultimately led to his status today.

In 1982, Mr. Baker supported Senate President James Clark when Senators Melvin A. Steinberg, now lieutenant governor, and Mike Miller staged his overthrow. Mr. Steinberg became Senate president and Mr. Miller took over the Judicial Proceedings Committee.

Mr. Baker, a vocal member of the Budget and Taxation Committee, was shifted to Judicial Proceedings, as Mr. Steinberg rewarded his supporters. He took the punishment stoically, which impressed Mr. Miller. He made Mr. Baker his vice chairman, then tapped him for the chairmanship when he became Senate president in 1986.

Mr. Miller still counts on Mr. Baker. He was a floor leader in the abortion rights fight last year, prompting Mr. Miller to say: "I felt like I had [war hero-turned-actor] Randolph Scott on my side."

Sen. Mary Boergers, a Montgomery County Democrat on Mr. Baker's committee, is in many ways his antithesis. She says the two work beautifully together, but she also notes that the senator is not immune to the power games of Annapolis.

He killed every House bill that came to his committee his first year as chairman. Another year, Ms. Boergers recalled, he held up 250 House bills when a House committee was slow to act on a bill he wanted.

Mr. Baker also has the politician's penchant for rewriting history. Last May, for example, he told The Evening Sun he planned to link assault weapons legislation to bills that would expedite the death penalty process. This year, he suddenly announced that not only was the deal off -- it had never existed.

Mr. Baker decided to withdraw his death penalty bills after a tedious hearing -- his description -- in which lawyers and judges haggled over complex points of law. There were no relatives of victims, no personal testimony. Mr. Baker doesn't believe in that kind of sentiment.

"I don't like to throw the subjective thing into it," Mr. Baker said after the hearing. "I don't pass bills or not pass bills because of sympathy. That gets under my skin. We're in the real world here."