Bob Filner, a progressive Democrat who served twenty years in Congress after which efficiently ran for mayor of San Diego, promising to shake up Metropolis Corridor — however whose profession imploded inside months amid a storm of sexual harassment prices — died on April 20. He was 82.
His household introduced the demise. The announcement didn’t give a trigger or say the place he died, however The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that he died in an assisted dwelling residence in Costa Mesa, Calif.
Mr. Filner, who was recognized for his brash and combative type, resigned as mayor beneath strain in August 2013, after 18 girls accused him of sexual misconduct in his time as mayor and through his years in Congress.
The ladies included a retired Navy rear admiral, a college dean and Mr. Filner’s former communications director, who mentioned that Mr. Filner had advised her he wished to see her bare and requested her to work with out underwear.
He left workplace denying any wrongdoing. However two months later, he pleaded responsible to a felony cost of false imprisonment and misdemeanor prices of battery involving two different girls. He was sentenced to 3 months’ residence confinement and three years’ probation.
“I by no means supposed to be a mayor who went out like this,” he said.
His humiliating downfall overshadowed a protracted document of liberal activism through which he represented largely low-income, racially numerous districts of San Diego and Southern California, and a profession as a progressive champion that traced to his jailing in Mississippi as a Freedom Rider in 1961.
He was the primary Democrat elected mayor of San Diego in 20 years and got here into workplace with sweeping plans for a liberal agenda for California’s second-largest metropolis, which was extra conservative than different large cities within the state. He battled town’s enterprise institution, together with the conservative editorial web page of The Union-Tribune, which in a cartoon in contrast him to the Joker within the “Batman” motion pictures.
A former school historical past professor at San Diego State College, Mr. Filner entered electoral politics in 1979 by profitable a seat on the San Diego faculty board, which led to a seat on the Metropolis Council in 1987.
He was elected to Congress in 1992 from California’s newly drawn fiftieth district, which included many of the state’s border with Mexico, with a big Hispanic inhabitants.
Within the Home, Mr. Filner helped set up the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Over his 10 phrases he rose to chairman of the Home Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. He championed labor, environmental and civil rights points.
As a sophomore at Cornell, he had volunteered in the summertime of 1961 for the Freedom Rides, protests in opposition to segregated bus terminals within the Deep South.
Arriving by bus in Jackson, Miss., Mr. Filner was arrested on prices of disturbing the peace and inciting a riot. Moderately than publish bond, he adopted the protesters’ agreed-on techniques and accepted a two-month jail time period within the infamous Mississippi State Penitentiary, referred to as Parchman Farm.
“The Freedom Journey modified my entire 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 sequence of steel buying and selling companies.
After serving jail time in Mississippi, Mr. Filner returned to Cornell, the place he earned a level in chemistry in 1963 and a Ph.D. within the historical past of science in 1969.
He then moved to San Diego and taught school historical past there for 20 years.
His two marriages, to Barbara Christy in 1966 and Jane Merrill in 1985, each led to divorce.
He’s survived by a son, Adam, and a daughter, Erin, from his first marriage; two grandchildren; and a brother, Bernard.
In July 2013, simply seven months into Mr. Filner’s four-year time period as mayor, he was engulfed in a blizzard of sexual harassment accusations. A former Metropolis Council member who had as soon as labored for Mr. Filner, Donna Frye, held a information convention through which she declared that a number of girls had accused the mayor of undesirable advances, together with groping and kissing.
“Bob Filner is tragically unsafe for any girl to method,” Ms. Frye said, calling on him to quit.
Mr. Filner apologized for any misbehavior he may need dedicated, calling himself a “very demonstrative particular person” and a “hugger of women and men.” However he refused to step down.
Inside days, Irene McCormack Jackson, his former communications director, filed a lawsuit and said at a news conference that the mayor would wrap his arm round her neck and pull her “like a rag doll, whereas he whispered sexual feedback” in her ear.
Extra accusers got here ahead, together with military veterans who mentioned Mr. Filner had used his place of authority to strain them for dates or intimate contact.
Elected Democrats and former political allies demanded that the mayor resign. The refrain included Senator Barbara Boxer of California, who printed an open letter calling on him to step apart. He did so on Aug. 23 however remained defiant, suggesting that he was being pushed out by “a lynch mob mentality.”
He later pleaded responsible to a felony cost of restraining a girl and to 2 misdemeanor prices of kissing a girl in opposition to her will and touching the buttock of one other girl. The plea deal was reached by Kamala Harris, who prosecuted the case because the state lawyer normal.
“This conduct was not solely felony, it was additionally an excessive abuse of energy,” Ms. Harris, who was later the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee going through Donald J. Trump, mentioned. “Nobody is above the regulation.”
