On Wednesday, former GOP Rep. Darrell Issa announced that he was forming an exploratory committee for a possible bid for California’s 50th Congressional District, an inland San Diego County seat that borders the 49th District he represented until January.
The 50th District is held by Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter, who is still running for reelection even though he’s scheduled to stand trial in January on corruption charges. The candidate filing deadline is in December, and if Hunter goes forward with his plans to seek a seventh term, he won’t be able to take his name off the ballot later no matter how his trial goes.
If Issa, who Roll Call ranked as the wealthiest member of Congress for years, runs, he’ll be in for a crowded race in this 55-40 Trump seat. A number of other Republicans are challenging Hunter, and the most prominent among them is former conservative radio host Carl DeMaio. Like Issa, DeMaio has a history of running for office in other parts of San Diego County: The former San Diego city councilman narrowly lost a 2012 contest for mayor (none of the city of San Diego is located in the 50th District), and he also lost a tight race in the neighboring 52nd District two years later to Democratic Rep. Scott Peters.
Democrat Ammar Campa-Najjar, who lost a competitive race to Hunter last year, is also in. All the candidates will run on one ballot in the March top-two primary, and the two contenders with the most votes will advance to the general election.
If Issa does run and win, there will be plenty of people from both parties who won’t be happy at all to see him back in Congress. Issa was first elected to the House in 2000, and he earned the ire of progressives across the nation in 2003 when he bankrolled the successful effort to recall California Gov. Gray Davis. Issa had planned to run in the crowded recall campaign himself, but after Arnold Schwarzenegger jumped in and sucked up the oxygen on the GOP side, Issa tearfully announced he wouldn't join the race.
But while Issa may not have wanted to stick around in Congress, he made the most of his post by using his position as chair of the House Oversight Committee—and millions in taxpayer dollars—to launch bogus investigation after bogus investigation against the Obama administration (chief among them the interminable Benghazi probe), bragging he wanted "seven hearings a week, times 40 weeks." Issa's rap sheet in fact goes on for days—click here for the full readout.
Democrats didn’t hide their joy when Issa, who had only narrowly won reelection in 2016 in his once-safely red 49th District, decided to retire in 2018 rather than go through another tough race. Issa reportedly considered running in the more conservative 50th District just weeks later, but that campaign didn’t end up happening.
Issa’s inquisitions delighted his fellow GOP members of Congress, but the man himself left something to be desired. In September, Donald Trump nominated Issa to lead the U.S. Trade and Development Agency, but the Senate still has not confirmed him. And in June, when The Hill broke the news that he was mulling a run for the 50th District, they added that some GOP House members believed he had “rubbed colleagues the wrong way.”
One unnamed member sounded particularly pissed at Issa for wanting to come back to Congress after abandoning the 49th District, which Democrat Mike Levin flipped last year. This member declared, “Issa had his time here,” and added, “[Y]eah, we know California is a challenging political environment, but I don’t think there’s been a lot of calls made to have him come back.”
Whatever is animating Issa’s desire to return to the chamber he just left, it doesn’t seem to be the issues. Roll Call’s Emily Kopp notes that, while Issa’s new website contains the announcement about his new exploratory committee, the issues sections read “placeholder for 1st issues title” and “placeholder for 2nd issues title,” with plenty of dummy text underneath. The donate section is up in running, though.
Want more great elections coverage like this? Sign up for our free daily newsletter, the Morning Digest.