Keene makes bid for senate

RUNNING: Former State Assemblyman and Chico City Councilman and Mayor Rick Keene, 52, announced he will run for the California State Senate District 4 seat being vacated by Sam Aanestad.

Two strong Republican candidates - Doug LaMalfa of Richvale and Rick Keene of Chico - are competing for the hearts and minds of South County voters in filling the State Senate District 4 seat being vacated by Sam Aanestad of Grass Valley.

Due to term limits, Aanestad has announced he will run for lieutenant governor in the June primary.

Until they were each termed out of their respective State Assembly seats, LaMalfa represented Assembly District 2 and Keene held the Assembly District 3 seat, each of which is contained in the larger Senate District 4 territory.

Since LaMalfa and Keene each carry nearly identical credentials as pro-Second Amendment, pro-life, pro-family, anti-tax conservative Republicans interested in water issues, natural resources, property rights and down-sizing government, small differences in their respective backgrounds and areas of expertise begin to take on a broader scope in helping voters differentiate between the two seemingly equally-qualified candidates.

To help our South County readers begin to make up their minds about which man to support, we sat down recently for an extended conversation with Rick Keene, 52. Very shortly, we intend to do the same with Doug LaMalfa, 49.

Keene's parents were living in Brookings, Ore., near Crescent City, Calif., when he was born Nov. 16, 1957, at Sutter Coast Hospital in Crescent City. Shortly after, they split up and by age 3, Keene was living with his mother and step-father in Hayfork, Trinity County.

He graduated from Hayfork High School in 1975. During high school, he worked briefly in the Sierra Pacific Industries sawmill in Hayfork, now closed, and also for a local grocery store. He did maintenance work for the schools and even worked one summer for Cal-Trans, mostly as a safety flagger.

When he wasn't working, Keene was active in choir singing bass at school and at church and working on reaching a four-octave range. He also played football for a year and was on the wrestling squad.

After graduation, he attended Chico State University on a music scholarship until he decided that he wanted to go into the ministry.

By then, however, he was married to wife Janice and the couple was raising two children. Keene sought work at United Parcel Service, now UPS, and delivered parcels by day while attending university classes at night.

Ironically, it was church politics that caused Keene to change course once again in his life. He was serving on a Butte County Superior Court jury panel when he witnessed close up the antics of "probably the two worst lawyers I have ever seen."

Inspired by the thought that he could out-lawyer either of those two attorneys, Keene enrolled in the just-opened Cal-Northern School of Law in Chico and spent several years attending law school four nights a week while keeping his UPS route serviced during the days until he graduated in 1989.

Keene practiced law for several years in Chico, then was convinced by some conservative backers to run for a seat on the mostly-liberal Chico City Council. He lost his first try in 1992, but was successful in 1994 in getting elected as one of two conservatives on a five-member council. Keene served on the Chico City Council until 2001.

He was elected to the California State Assembly District 3 seat in 2002 and served six years representing the counties of Lassen, Plumas, Yuba, Nevada, Sierra and portions of Butte and Placer counties.

Shortly after winning his Assembly seat, Keene was selected as Republican Whip and chosen as vice chair of the Assembly Committee on Water, Parks and Wildlife. After 10 months in the Assembly, Keene was chosen as the Assistant Republican Leader. He was the leading Republican on the Assembly's Budget Committee, and also served on the Natural Resources Committee, the Utilities and Commerce Committee and the Joint Legislative Committee on Emergency Services and Homeland Security. He also served on the Joint Legislative Audit Committee, a watchdog committee for both sides of the state legislature.

Over the years, Keene has built up a fund-raising cadre that has helped him amass a political war chest of $1 million.

"I believe the local government experience has given me a broader picture" of how government works or doesn't in California, Keene said Tuesday, Feb. 2.