At lunch with a well-connected San Diegan this week, I heard a fascinating rumor about the Mayor’s race in the City of San Diego. It was the notion that a sizable majority of San Diego’s Jewish community does not want Congressman Bob Filner to run for Mayor, because it would lose “the highest ranking Jewish member of Congress and a powerful voice for Israel” according to my source. This source isn’t one of the usual suspects and not Jewish, but a keen political observer in a position to hear such things.
I’m not here on Rostra to provide you confirmation of such a rumor. (Anyone with information is welcome to chime in, officially or unofficially). But true or not, it did make me curious enough to research the Jewish members of Congress. California has a sizable contingent: both of our U.S. Senators, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, and seven of 53 California Congressional Representatives. All told, this group makes up nine of the 45 Jewish members of Congress. This includes Filner and Congresswoman Susan Davis. Jewish Americans make up two percent of the U.S. population, but over eight percent of the members of Congress.
One thing isn’t quite correct. Filner is a senior member of Congress with 18 years in office, but he’s far from “the senior” Jewish member of Congress. That honor goes to the sole Republican among this group, House Minority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia.
Circling back to Congressman Filner, don’t ever count him out. Filner was the underdog in his first two runs at elective office. The San Diego State University history professor defeated longtime incumbent Dorothea Edmiston in 1979 by less than one percent of the vote for a seat on the San Diego United School District Board of Education. He was the lone Democrat at the time, hard to believe today. He was elected President of the board in 1982. Filner then ran against Mike Aguirre in a group of nine candidates for the Eighth District San Diego City Council seat in 1987. He was again the underdog and again he pulled out a victory.
Filner ran for the newly created 50th Congressional District in 1992 in a five-way Democratic primary. One of his opponents was his old boss, Jim Bates, who’d been booted out of Congress after a sexual harassment scandal. More formidable was well-respected state Senator Wadie Deddeh who was being termed out of his seat. Filner beat Deddeh by a whisker as well as Bates and Juan Vargas, and went on to crush Republican Tony Valencia by a two to one margin.
If Bob Filner seems a longshot for San Diego Mayor, it’s just the way he likes it.