Bob Filner, the ex-mayor of San Diego mired by sexual misconduct, dead at 82

Yahoo

28-04-2025

SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) — Bob Filner, the long-time politician who served as a member of Congress and mayor of San Diego before accusations of sexual harassment and battery forced his exit from public office, has died. He was 82.
Filner passed away last week, on Sunday, April 20, a friend of his confirmed to FOX 5/KUSI. A cause of death has not been disclosed.
Prior to his death, the former San Diego mayor remained a contentious figure in the city, defined by the stinging sexual harassment scandal that made national headlines and spurred his fall from grace in the mid-2010s.
While he initially insisted the allegations were false, he pleaded guilty months after his resignation from office to charges of false imprisonment and battery involving three women. He was later sentenced to three months of home confinement and three years of probation.
The city of San Diego also doled out more than $1 million to settle multiple lawsuits filed by women who said they experienced this harassment during his time in office.
Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1942, Filner spent a portion of his young adult life as an activist, participating in Civil Rights demonstrations. He was notably arrested as a Freedom Rider in Jackson, Mississippi in 1961.
Filner moved to San Diego in the 1970s while completing his PhD. Shortly after his move, he became a professor of history at San Diego State University, where he taught for more than 20 years.
During this time, he also began working in various capacities for several Democratic members of Congress, including former Vice President Hubert Humphrey when he served as a Senator from Minnesota and Rep. Jim Bates, the San Diego congressmember who made history as the first to be sanctioned by the House of Representatives for sexual harassment.
Filner entered public office himself in the late 1970s, defeating a longstanding incumbent to join the San Diego Unified School District Board of Education. He was elected by his colleagues as president of the board in 1982.
Several years later, Filner made the jump to the San Diego City Council. He was elected to his first term in 1987 and became deputy mayor in 1990.
Then in 1992, the Democrat set his sights on Congress, winning election in the 50th District — the seat spanning south San Diego renumbered as the 51st District after the 2000 census.
During his tenure in Congress, he was a founding member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and ascended to the chairmanship of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, considered one of the most important committees in the lower chamber of Congress.
Following two decades Congress, Filner announced his candidacy for mayor of San Diego. In 2012, he won over then-City Councilmember Carl DeMaio in the General Election, becoming only the second Democratic mayor for the city since 1971.
As mayor, Filner ruffled the feathers of many, drawing controversy on everything from transactional deals on projects coming before the city as seen with the Sunroad scandal — something probed by the FBI — and abrupt personnel shakeups inside City Hall.
He resigned in August 2013 as allegations began surfacing of harassing behavior to more than a dozen women in the workplace, some of which dated back to his days on the San Diego City Council and as a member of Congress.
After leaving office, he retreated from public view, only speaking out a handful of times. He first broke his relative silence on his misconduct in 2018, offering a public apology while asking for forgiveness during a radio interview on the #MeToo movement.
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