Bob Filner, Mayor of San Diego Who Left Amid Scandal, Dies at 82

New York Times

03-05-2025

Bob Filner, a progressive Democrat who served two decades in Congress and then successfully ran for mayor of San Diego, promising to shake up City Hall — but whose career imploded within months amid a storm of sexual harassment charges — died on April 20. He was 82.
His family announced the death. The announcement did not give a cause or say where he died, but The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that he died in an assisted living home in Costa Mesa, Calif.
Mr. Filner, who was known for his brash and combative style, resigned as mayor under pressure in August 2013, after 18 women accused him of sexual misconduct in his time as mayor and during his years in Congress.
The women included a retired Navy rear admiral, a university dean and Mr. Filner's former communications director, who said that Mr. Filner had told her he wanted to see her naked and asked her to work without underwear.
He left office denying any wrongdoing. But two months later, he pleaded guilty to a felony charge of false imprisonment and misdemeanor charges of battery involving two other women. He was sentenced to three months' home confinement and three years' probation.
'I never intended to be a mayor who went out like this,' he said.
His humiliating downfall overshadowed a long record of liberal activism in which he represented largely low-income, racially diverse districts of San Diego and Southern California, and a career as a progressive champion that traced to his jailing in Mississippi as a Freedom Rider in 1961.
He was the first Democrat elected mayor of San Diego in 20 years and came into office with sweeping plans for a liberal agenda for California's second-largest city, which was more conservative than other big cities in the state. He battled the city's business establishment, including the conservative editorial page of The Union-Tribune, which in a cartoon compared him to the Joker in the 'Batman' movies.
A former college history professor at San Diego State University, Mr. Filner entered electoral politics in 1979 by winning a seat on the San Diego school board, which led to a seat on the City Council in 1987.
He was elected to Congress in 1992 from California's newly drawn 50th district, which included most of the state's border with Mexico, with a large Hispanic population.
In the House, Mr. Filner helped establish the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Over his 10 terms he rose to chairman of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs. He championed labor, environmental and civil rights issues.
As a sophomore at Cornell, he had volunteered in the summer of 1961 for the Freedom Rides, protests against segregated bus terminals in the Deep South.
Arriving by bus in Jackson, Miss., Mr. Filner was arrested on charges of disturbing the peace and inciting a riot. Rather than post bond, he followed the protesters' agreed-on tactics and accepted a two-month jail term in the notorious Mississippi State Penitentiary, known as Parchman Farm.
'The Freedom Ride changed my whole life personally and politically,' Mr. Filner later said.
Robert Earl Filner was born on Sept. 4, 1942, in Pittsburgh, to Sarah and Joseph Filner. His father was a labor organizer who went on to run a series of metal trading businesses.
After serving prison time in Mississippi, Mr. Filner returned to Cornell, where he earned a degree in chemistry in 1963 and a Ph.D. in the history of science in 1969.
He then moved to San Diego and taught college history there for 20 years.
His two marriages, to Barbara Christy in 1966 and Jane Merrill in 1985, both ended in divorce.
He is survived by a son, Adam, and a daughter, Erin, from his first marriage; two grandchildren; and a brother, Bernard.
In July 2013, just seven months into Mr. Filner's four-year term as mayor, he was engulfed in a blizzard of sexual harassment accusations. A former City Council member who had once worked for Mr. Filner, Donna Frye, held a news conference in which she declared that several women had accused the mayor of unwanted advances, including groping and kissing.
'Bob Filner is tragically unsafe for any woman to approach,' Ms. Frye said, calling on him to quit.
Mr. Filner apologized for any misbehavior he might have committed, calling himself a 'very demonstrative person' and a 'hugger of men and women.' But he refused to step down.
Within days, Irene McCormack Jackson, his former communications director, filed a lawsuit and said at a news conference that the mayor would wrap his arm around her neck and pull her 'like a rag doll, while he whispered sexual comments' in her ear.
More accusers came forward, including military veterans who said Mr. Filner had used his position of authority to pressure them for dates or intimate contact.
Elected Democrats and former political allies demanded that the mayor resign. The chorus included Senator Barbara Boxer of California, who published an open letter calling on him to step aside. He did so on Aug. 23 but remained defiant, suggesting that he was being pushed out by 'a lynch mob mentality.'
He later pleaded guilty to a felony charge of restraining a woman and to two misdemeanor charges of kissing a woman against her will and touching the buttock of another woman. The plea deal was reached by Kamala Harris, who prosecuted the case as the state attorney general.
'This conduct was not only criminal, it was also an extreme abuse of power,' Ms. Harris, who was later the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee facing Donald J. Trump, said. 'No one is above the law.'