Congressional District 50: Will East County Elect an Honest Human?
In 2018, the big partisan race for Congress was in the 49th Congressional District. This year, it’s the 50th, the last bastion of Republican-controlled House of Representatives seats from San Diego.
The 50th is Red. Really Red. President Donald Trump carried the district by 15 points over Hillary Clinton in 2016.
At present, the seat is open. Former Congressman Duncan Hunter, Jr., got caught with his hand in the campaign fund till, and cut a deal with prosecutors, pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy misuse of campaign funds, and agreeing to abandon his claim to the seat.
Despite being under indictment and the subject of salacious news accounts in 2018, Hunter was reelected by a 3.4 point margin over Ammar Campa-Najjar. Hunter’s father held the seat before Junior, and the family name was well-known throughout the 50th. And Republican voters are amazingly forgiving of improprieties that would doom any other political candidate.
Governor Newsom rejected appeals to call a special election, leaving the seat vacant until being filled in January 2021, subsequent to the regularly scheduled 2020 election.
Democrat Ammar Campa-Najjar started his 2020 campaign the day after the election, knowing that Hunter would be gone. It may seem like an impossible dream, but his supporters have been knocking on doors and otherwise talking with voters for four years now.
They think they have a chance. A recent poll actually showed the democrat winning the seat in November. I’m taking that poll with a grain of salt.
Politico reports that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee likes what they’re seeing in D50, and have boosted Campa-Najjar to its “Red to Blue” program providing resources to promising candidates.
The one thing everybody agrees on is the importance of this contest. Duncan Hunter’s departure led to a mad rush of Republicans hoping to take his place. State Senator Brian Jones and El Cajon Mayor Bill Wells actually lived in the district and had a track record with voters.
The Republican side of the March, 2020 primary ended up being a battle between two self-entitled politicians, who believed their brands and the cash they could supply was the way to victory.
Former City Councilman Carl DeMaio, who unsuccessfully ran for Congress in the 52nd district, and newly retired Congressman Darrall Issa, who ruled the roost in the 49th for 18 years, moved on over to campaign.
After all, if voters were willing to vote for a candidate clearly headed for jail, they certainly wouldn’t object to a little old fashioned carpetbagging. And there is no law requiring a candidate to live in their district.
It was a sleazy primary, but DeMaio was no match for Issa’s personal wealth and ability to utilize innuendo to demean an opponent.
The final results for the top four were Cama-Najjar 36.3%, Issa 23.5%, DeMaio 20.2% and Jones 10.8%.
If you add up all those Republican percentages, Campa-Najjar would appear to have a steep hill to climb. However, Darrell Issa’s got some history to be reckoned with.
It always amazes me how candidates who make law and order/tough guy part of their brand can get away with having questionable pasts. For all the air time Issa received being righteous about partisan crusades as chair of the House Oversight Committee, you'd think he’d have a squeaky clean record.
Before I delve into Issa’s past, I’d like to raise a contemporary question. The man is rich, like hundreds of millions rich, and in the past hasn’t hesitated to self finance his campaigns.
The congressman who called earmarks “tantamount to a bribe” was accused in 2011 of requesting earmarks to enhance the value of his commercial properties; nearly $1 million in federal funds was allocated for improvements on West Vista Highway. Issa investments in the Vista Medical Center Building and two other commercial real estate buildings stood to gain from these improvements.
Did Issa Need Paycheck Protection Loan?
One of his current enterprises, Greene Properties, has seven employees, and specializes in commercial real estate. . On May 3, 2020 the company received between $150-300K in Paycheck Protection Program money through Newtek Small Business Finance.
On May 27, 2020, Issa wrote a check to his own House campaign for $150,000. His total personal investment with no date due loans in the D50 campaign is $3.4 million dollars.
The latest FEC report indicates the campaign’s cash flow included $630K in donations (plus the aforementioned loan), and $627K in expenses. Their net cash on hand (assets minus debt) is a negative $292,744.
Bad things with Darrell Issa always end up just short of crossing the line into legal trouble, and I no doubt his campaign can explain this away. When you view his actions in totality, it’s nearly impossible to avoid the conclusion that something hinky is always going on with the man.
Here’s an example of their latest social media effort, which sent KUSI into a tizzy, claiming that censorship was taking place.
When you've got nothing else, lie. It's the Issa brand.
Oldies But Goodies
Darrell Issa didn’t get a job in the Trump administration (8 associates found guilty, plus 28 acting cabinet secretaries in three years), because he couldn’t pass a background check by the FBI.
Issa has two grand theft auto arrests, never prosecuted, and one concealed handgun bust. In that case, he pled guilty to a charge of possession of an unregistered firearm, and was sentenced to six months' probation and given a small fine.
He got demoted for unsatisfactory conduct in the Army. He would later claim that part of his job included sweeping stadiums for bombs prior to games for the 1971 World Series attended by then President Richard Nixon. The only problem with this story is the fact Nixon didn’t attend any of the games that year.
Then there’s the arson story. Issa first business venture, Quantum Enterprises, assembled electronics such as bug zappers, FM power boosters, and CB radio parts for other companies. He later acquired Steal Stopper International, which made car alarms.
On September 7, 1982, the building housing both companies caught fire. Fire department investigators blamed a faulty electrical outlet. The St Paul insurance company thought the blaze was arson, citing “suspicious burn patterns,” such as “two separate major areas of origin.”
I’ll quote Ryan Lizza’s report for The New Yorker, back in the day when Issa was considered a rising star in the GOP:
Joey Adkins, the former owner of Steal Stopper, provided the main evidence against Issa. On the afternoon of September 20, 1982, in a lengthy recorded interview with an insurance investigator, he described a series of suspicious actions by Issa before the fire. Adkins, who still worked for Steal Stopper, said that Issa removed the company’s Apple II computer from the building, including “all hardware, all software, all the instruction books,” and also “the discs for accounts payable, accounts receivable, customer list, everything.”
According to Adkins, Issa also transferred a copy of every design used by Steal Stopper from a filing cabinet to a fireproof box. He also said that Issa put in the box some important silk screens used in the production of circuit boards. Insurance officials noted that, less than three weeks before the fire, Issa had increased his insurance from a hundred thousand dollars to four hundred and sixty-two thousand dollars. “Quite frankly,” Adkins told the investigator, “I feel the man set the fire.”
The Ohio state fire marshal never determined the cause of the fire and no one was ever charged with a crime. According to Issa, St. Paul paid Quantum twenty-five thousand dollars, but refused to pay his claim for the Steal Stopper inventory. Issa sued St. Paul for a hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars, and the two parties eventually settled out of court for about twenty thousand dollars.
The former Congressman’s explanations to Lizza for these past episodes might sound reasonable taken one at a time. But, again, when you add them all together, you have to wonder about all these coincidences.
Here’s the thing about Darrell Issa: he’s whatever he needs to be at the moment, as long as there’s profit (political or financial) to be made.
Funding for Planned Parenthood was something Issa was in favor of back in the days when it looked like his D49 seat looked vulnerable, promising support before a town hall audience.
Today, Issa’s campaign website says:
As a Member of Congress, I earned a 100 percent voting record from the National Right to Life Committee – and a zero percent rating from Planned Parenthood. I voted to defund Planned Parenthood and supported numerous pro-life measures like the partial-birth abortion ban and the Pain Capable Unborn Child Act.
In 2016, Issa was a surrogate campaigner for Sen. Marco Rubio, often warning audiences about the consequences of electing Donald Trump. Now, this video is on his website, with Trump saying Darryll was an early endorser.
https://youtu.be/F1Feelmnz6o
Issa’s literally the pot calling the kettle black when he references Campa-Najjar’s Palestinian heritage to imply that there’s some sort of terrorist connection. This is the guy who was palling around with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad --a known sponsor of terrorists--trying to make his own foreign policy..
And then there’s this, via Mother Jones:
Last year, Issa was heavily criticized by fellow Republicans after he argued in a congressional hearing that New York had already received enough federal assistance to recover from 9/11, which he referred to as “a fire” that “simply was an aircraft” hitting the World Trade Center buildings. Issa has also dismissed concerns about torture, saying the United States “treated our hospital patients at times worse than Al Qaeda” detainees were treated at Guantanamo.
I could go on and on, but I hope you get the point.
The bottom line is that Issa is a longtime Washington DC politician. He’s part of the world of lobbyists, dark money groups, big corporations, and billionaire donors. When it comes time to vote on legislation, these are the people influencing his decisions, not his constituents.
Campa-Najjr may not look or sound like the past when it comes to representing the 50th Congressional District, and that’s a good thing.
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Ammar Campa Najjar
Website | Facebook | Twitter | Endorsements
Bio: The son of a “Christian, working class woman.” (Emphasis needed b/c of GOP slurs) Bounced back and forth between the US and the Middle East until his parents separated. Started out working as a janitor for a church, ended up becoming youth leader for the congregation. Owns ACN Strategies, a small business consulting firm; course lecturer at SDSU, paid guest lecturer at UCSD, and Academic Civic Engagement Fellow at UCSD.
In his 2018 run to unseat Duncan Hunter, Campa-Najjar was the object of political attacks calling him a “national security risk.”
His father was from Palestine, and his grandfather --who he never met-- Muhammad Yusuf al-Najjar, was a leader in the Fatah political party, which was and remains today one of the largest factions of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Israeli intelligence services believed his grandfather was involved in the 1972 Black September attack on athletes, and summarily executed him in front of Campa-Najjar’s father.
Despite ongoing attacks on Campa-Najjar attempting brand him as somehow linked to terrorism, more than 360 individuals supporters of J Street (among the United State’s largest pro-Israel groups) contributed a total $48,736 to Campa-Najjar’s 2018 campaign via a political action committee.
Education: Community college; graduated from San Diego State University,
Relevant experience: White House position in the Executive Office of the President, United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (USHCC) as Communications and Marketing Director, U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Public Affairs for the Employment and Training Administration
A significant accomplishment: served as Deputy Regional Field Director for the 2012 Obama reelection campaign
Politics in a nutshell: Liberal Centrist
$$$$
Aggregate Fundraising Numbers for Ammar Campa-Najjar: $3,043,701.00
A sampling of links concerning Ammar Campa-Najjar
In Unsolicited Nod, Barack Obama Endorses Campa-Najjar for Congress in CA50
Born in California, raised in Gaza — will San Diego send this millennial to Congress?
Indicted congressman falsely ties opponent to terrorism - The
Campa-Najjar advances in race to fill Hunter’s San Diego County House seat, will likely face Issa
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Darrell Issa
Website | Facebook | Twitter | Endorsements
Bio: Born in Cleveland, enlisted in the Army during his senior year in high school; was given a hardship discharge after his father suffered a heart attack. Was arrested twice in 1972; grand theft auto and carrying a concealed handgun. Charges were dismissed. Arrested again in 1980 for grand theft auto; prosecutors dropped case.
Founded Directed Electronics Inc., a manufacturer of automobile security and convenience products. Became politically active through his involvement with consumer-electronics trade organization.
In 1996, chaired campaign to pass California Proposition 209, prohibiting public institutions in California from considering race, sex, or ethnicity in the areas of public employment, public contracting, or public education. Proposition 16 on the 2020 ballot seeks to undo this law, now widely considered to be racist.
Issa's first campaign for elected office was in 1998, when he sought the Republican nomination for United States Senate to run against incumbent Democrat Barbara Boxer. Despite spending $10 million of his own money,he lost to California State Treasurer Matt Fong.
In 2000, Congressman Ron Packard decided not to run for re-election, and Issa stepped in to win what was then called the 48th congressional district.
He was easily re-elected every two years until 2016, when Col. Doug Applegate (ret) came close to unseating him. During the Obama years, Issa served as the GOP attack dog, holding numerous contentious hearings, making many accusations, all of which amounted to nothing.
Activists with Indivisible and other groups began holding weekly protests outside Issa’s offices in Vista, and began block by block voter registration campaigns. He got the message, and announced his retirement in 2018.
Supposedly Issa was in line for a trade representative position within the Trump administration; his confirmation hearings never took place because of issues about his past raised during an FBI background check.
A significant accomplishment: Chairman of the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee, Congressman Issa served as the top government watchdog in Congress.
Politics in a nutshell: Conservative, currently posing as a Trump supporter.
$$$$
Aggregate Fundraising Numbers for Darrell Issa: $8,221,306.00
(Including $3,400,000.00 in Loans)
A sampling of links concerning Darrell Issa
America's Richest Congressman Thinks America's Poorest People Are the 'Envy of the World'
Retiring Rep. Darrell Issa Was Once A Powerful Anti-Obama Voice
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Next Up: Local Congressional Contests: D51, D52, D53
Voter Guide – You’ve Voted for President, what’s next?
I’ll be writing about many ballot measures and candidates between now and the end of September. That work will be condensed into a handy-dandy voter guide just in time for your mail-in ballots to arrive. I’m the guy who coordinated San Diego Free Press’s Voter Guides over the past decade, so this won’t be my first effort. Stay tuned.
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