congressman

Former San Diego congressman and longtime journalist Lionel Van Deerlin, for many years a liberal voice in a region dominated by conservatives, died Saturday at his San Diego home, several weeks after suffering a heart attack. He was 93.

A Democrat, Van Deerlin represented the southern part of San Diego County from 1962 until he was defeated amid the 1980 Reagan landslide by a young lawyer and Vietnam veteran named Duncan Hunter.

Born July 25, 1914, in Los Angeles, Van Deerlin was a 1937 graduate of USC, where he was editor of the Daily Trojan.

He worked on newspapers in San Diego, Minneapolis and Baltimore and served in the Army during World War II as a staff member of the Stars and Stripes newspaper.

He was city editor of the now-defunct San Diego Journal, then news director for several radio and television stations before being elected to Congress in 1962 on his third try.

After his defeat in 1980, he began writing a political column for the San Diego Tribune and then the Union-Tribune.

Even as his health declined after a heart attack in March, he continued to write a weekly column.

His last was published Thursday.

His writing was clean and crisp, often with a biting sense of humor and a keen sense of history.

He often decried the bitter partisanship of modern Washington.

“Twenty-five years ago in Congress you not only trusted the opposing party, you enjoyed their company,” he said. “Today, they hardly speak.”

He was a professor emeritus of communications at San Diego State, where there is an endowed chair in his name.

Survivors include daughters Susie of Julian, Victoria of Encinitas and Elizabeth of Hurlock, Md.; sons Jeff and John, both of San Diego; and four grandchildren. Van Deerlin’s wife of 67 years, Mary Jo, died last year.

A memorial service is being arranged at St. Joseph’s Cathedral in San Diego, with his son John, a Catholic priest, to officiate.

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CHICAGO — Saying he would do more if he were in Congress today to support LGBTQ rights — which he opposed when he served — former U.S. Rep. Aaron Schock (R-Ill.) came out as gay Thursday in social media and web posts.

In the postings on Instagram and a web page, the 38-year-old also describes his anguish at being rejected by members of his deeply religious family, including his mother, after they learned last year he was gay.

The longtime Republican laments that he opposed same-sex marriage while representing his conservative congressional district in central Illinois, noting that Democrat and fellow Illinoisan Barack Obama once stopped short of outright opposition.

“That fact doesn’t make my then position any less wrong, but it’s sometimes easy to forget that it was leaders of both parties who for so long wrongly understood what it was to defend the right to marry,” he writes.

He adds: “The truth is that if I were in Congress today, I would support LGBTQ rights in every way I could.”

The onetime rising GOP star and prolific Republican fundraiser garnered national attention after appearing on the cover of Men’s Health showing off his six-pack abs. He successfully marketed himself during six years in Congress as an unwavering fiscal conservative.

Schock resigned from Congress in 2015 amid scrutiny of his spending. He was indicted a year later on charges that accused him of illegally dipping into campaign and government coffers to subsidize a lavish lifestyle. But all charges were dropped in 2019 amid criticism of how prosecutors handled the case.

Schock confirmed the posts’ authenticity in a text message to the Journal Star in Peoria, the heart of the congressional district he represented for six years.

As he composed the social media posts, Schock said he knew he could expect sharp criticism from the community to which he said he now wanted to belong.

“Where was I, they will ask, when I was in a position to help advance issues important to gay Americans?” his posting says.

Many longtime supporters of gay rights blasted him on social media Thursday, including Pennsylvania state Rep. Brian Sims.

“Anyone can be gay. Everyone who is should be out,” Sims, a Democrat, said in a Facebook posting. “But to be a part of a Community, especially one you’ve attacked, you better start with an apology, make amends …”

Schock now understands, he said, that he is indebted to those activists who supported rights he opposed for so long.

“I can live openly now as a gay man because of the extraordinary brave people who had the courage to fight for our rights when I did not,” he writes.

Schock starts the postings on both Instagram and the web page with the words: “I am gay.”

He said he began driving to his mother’s house from Los Angeles to tell her that last year. But she had learned of it before he arrived, and when he spoke with her on the phone en route, “she told me to turn around and go back to LA,” he writes.

He adds, “I’ve come to terms with the fact that it might take my loved ones more time than I would like. And I realize some might never come around.”

He said he still receives occasional emails from family members “trying to sell me on conversion therapy,” the widely debunked notion that someone who is gay can, with therapy, become heterosexual.

Schock described growing up in a conservative Apostolic Christian Church where members even considered “watching TV to be sinfully idle,” he writes. He said he doesn’t think he was aware there were other gays in his midst.

“I understood that the teachings of my upbringing were pretty clear on the matter,” he said.

The ambitious Schock began buying real estate in high school, became a member of the local school board at 19 and an Illinois legislator at 23, then entered Congress at just 27.

He said the fact he is gay wouldn’t be a revelation for many who know him, adding that coming out publicly as gay is “just one of those things in my life in need of explicit affirmation … to finally validate who I am as a person.”

“In many ways,” he writes, “I regret the time wasted in not having done so sooner.”

Aug. 29 (UPI) — Randy “Duke” Cunningham, a decorated Vietnam War pilot and U.S. House member convicted of corruption, has died. He was 83.

Cunningham, the inspiration fo Tom Cruise‘s character Maverick in the film Top Gun, died Wednesday at a hospital in Little Rock, Ark., after an illness, the San Diego Union reported.

He represented the San Diego area in Congress for 15 years until 1990,

In 2005, Cunningham pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges and spent 8 1/2 years in prison, mostly at a minimum-security work camp in Tucson, Ariz. He admitted to accepting $2.4 million in illegal gifts from defense contractors in exchange for government contracts and other favors.

“The truth is, I broke the law, concealed my conduct and disgraced my office,” Cunningham told reporters in a tearful downtown San Diego news conference on the day he pleaded guilty. “I know that I will forfeit my freedom, my reputation, my worldly possessions and, most importantly, the trust of my friends and family. … In my life I have had great joy and great sorrow. And now I know great shame.”

Two defense contractors were sentenced in 2008 for bribery.

Brent Wilkes was sentencted to 12 years in prison for giving money, prostitutes and other bribes in exchange for securing $90 million in Pentagon work for his document scanning company.

Mitchell Wade was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison for bribing Cunningham with more than $1 million in gifts, including cash, home furnishings, a Rolls-Royce and an antique commode.

It was considered the largest bribery scandal in congression history.

He was released from prison in 2013 and went to a halfway house in New Orleans.

Cunningam moved to nearby Little Rock.

On the day President Donald Trump left office on Jan. 20, 2021, he pardoned Cunningham, noting he tutored inmates while in prison and volunteered for a local fire department. The pardon forgives the offense and restores civil rights, including the right to vote or hold public office.

Former Rep. Duncan Hunter Sr. visited his former colleague just last week.

“Duke was a wonderful guy, and he was a wonderful friend,” Hunter said .”His legacy is as one of the great fighter pilots of his era, but Duke’s more special than that. He was flying off the Constellation on a daily basis even when the politicians had given up on the Vietnam War.”

The Aviation National Geek Club reported he had been in and out of a hospital for eight months with heart problems.

Cunningham, who shared a nickname with the Hollywood icon John Wayne, was born in Los Angeles on Dec. 8, 1941, one day after Japanese fighters attacked Pearl Harbor.

After his family moved to Missouri, he attended the University of Missouri, earning degrees in education and physical education.

In 1967, he joined the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War.

He earned the Navy Cross and two Silver Stars. He flew F4 Panthom jets.

“With complete disregard for his own personal safety, he continued his attack through a hail of cannon fire to rescue his wingman,” the citation for one of his Silver Stars read.

“We flew 170 combat missions together and we were in some pretty harrowing situations,” Willy Driscoll, the only other naval aviator to earn ace designation during the Vietnam era, said. “Randy was the consummate professional as an aviator, constantly working to improve his knowledge of fighter tactics and committed to excellence in the air at all times.”

He rose to the rank of commander before retiring in 1967.

Cunningham became a political commentator on national television.

He decided to run against House Democrat Jim Bates, who was accused of sexual harassment.

In the left-learning 44th District, he promised to be a “congressman we can be proud of.” He won the race by 1 percentage point in 1990.

Cunningham lived on a boat on the Potomac River — “The Duke-Stir” — that was owned by a defense contractor.

He became chairman of a subcommittee that put him in control of billions of dollars in defense spending.

The San Diego Union reported a defense contractor had purchased Cunningham’s home for $1.7 million, which was several hundred thousand dollars above comparable homes.

The newspaper then reported he also accepted millions of dollars in bribes. The Union-Tribune and its news organization, Copley News Service, were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting.

“Probably the legacy he leaves is a reminder that the public square and public office can be very corrupting,” Marcus Stern, one of the reporters who broke the stories on Cunningham, said. “You go to Washington as a congressperson, and everything can become very tempting. He succumbed to it – but a lot of other people have as well.”

Rep. Robert Garcia’s relatives, many of Peruvian decent, have been asking him recently if they need to carry identification with them, as federal agents seemingly round up brown people at will.

His answer? Yes, but don’t let fear quell resistance.

“What’s happening right now with the terror of seeing masked men with rifles running into communities and scooping people up, the images that people are seeing on the TV of folks being sent to foreign prisons that have committed no crime, this is a serious moment,” he told me last week, ducking off the House floor where President Trump’s mess of a bill was being debated to speak by phone.

But “we cannot just allow all this to happen and for there to be no accountability for these actions,” Garcia added.

These days, Garcia is all about accountability. The Long Beach representative was recently was chosen by his Democratic congressional peers — after less than three years in office — for the minority party’s top job on the powerful House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

For those of you who aren’t government wonks, that’s a prime position for pushing back against Trump. So, as the president would say, it’s A BIG DEAL! Especially for a young guy — because usually the role goes to an old politician with seniority.

That’s left some, myself included, wondering if Garcia, 47, isn’t our insider Zohran Mamdani — the young, charismatic New Yorker whose recent win in the mayoral primary has left Democrats reeling with the reality that voters want fighters, and that patriotism isn’t just what MAGA decides it is.

Garcia has the same kind of energy and confidence that his version of America — one that is unabashedly inclusive, affordable and fair — is what his constituents want, and one he’s expected to fight for.

“I love this country,” Garcia said. “I feel like Trump and his minions don’t understand what real patriotism is.”

If you missed the fantastic profile of Garcia that my colleagues Seema Mehta and Andrea Castillo did not long ago, I’ll give you the highlights. Garcia came to this country from Peru when he was 5, his parents like so many seeking safety and opportunity.

The family overstayed their visas and joined the millions of undocumented Californians working hard, hoping harder and dreaming of a day when America embraced them the way they embraced America.

His mom cleaned houses and worked in a thrift store. Garcia taught himself English reading Superman comics. He excelled in school and by the time he was in college, Ronald Reagan of all people offered him a path to citizenship with the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act. He grabbed it.

“When I swore an oath to the Constitution, that actually meant something to me,” he said. “I had to fight for citizenship.”

Garcia went into public service and was elected mayor of Long Beach, the city’s youngest, first openly gay and first Latino mayor. Then he jumped to Congress in 2022, becoming president of his freshman Democratic class.

He is the American dream. But also the American nightmare to some on the far right, who may never forgive him for once being undocumented and doing the worst thing an undocumented person can do — succeed.

“I am who I am,” he said. “I’m a U.S. citizen. I have just as much right to be here and to serve as he does, and I’m not scared of Donald Trump.”

Garcia’s rapid rise in Congress shows he’s not just a brawler, but one with finesse. Garcia beat out Massachusetts Rep. Stephen Lynch, 70, for the job on the Oversight Committee. And before that, Maryland Rep. Kweisi Mfume, 76, bowed out, lacking support. He also bested Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett, 44, who has made a name for herself as a clever pugilist.

“It was clear by the numbers that my style of leadership is not exactly what [Democrats] were looking for, and so I didn’t think that it was fair for me to push forward and try to rebuke that,” Crockett told Politico after dropping her bid.

Garcia was able to combine his willingness to spar with the boring necessity of being a good manager, something he learned from running Long Beach. The committee role Garcia has now opened up when Virginia Rep. Gerry Connolly died of cancer in May.

New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, long considered the youthful firebrand of the Democratic Party, sought the job earlier this year but was rebuffed in favor of Connolly, with his years of clout. But that was before Mamdani, and the internal blowup within the party over age and attitude.

Ocasio-Cortez decided not to pursue the role a second time, but Garcia said she was one of the first people he spoke with when he decided to try his own luck.

“It’s been clear to me that the party should welcome generational change,” he said, echoing a now-familiar line. “There’s a groundswell out there of folks that want new ideas, that want us to be aggressive against Trump.”

With Democrats in the minority in both houses of Congress, there isn’t too much Garcia or any Democrat can do to stop the Trump agenda. But it’s important to make noise, set markers for future action and speak truth, Garcia said — and lay the groundwork for a time when Democrats do have a majority.

“The first thing is, we’ve got to be serious about having an anti-corruption agenda that includes taking a look at all of the horrific ways that [Trump’s] enriching himself and his family,” Garcia said.

The fancy dinner for investors of his cryptocurrency, the Qatari jet, his new perfume. The examples of Trump profiting off the presidency are numerous.

Garcia calls it “enormous grift” and “huge steps backward for our democracy.”

And then there is fellow Californian Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump’s immigration offensive.

If Democrats are ever back in power, and Oversight Committee Democrats can issue subpoenas and conduct investigations, “rest assured that Stephen Miller needs to be answering questions,” Garcia said. “Elon Musk needs to be asked questions in front of the Oversight Committee. So that agenda is going to be critical.”

But also, it’s not all about Trump.

“We have to also have a forward-looking agenda of, how do we make government work better?” he said. “It’s a bigger question about what kind of country, not only that we want to live in right now, but what kind of country we can actually build in the future.”

RICHMOND, Va. — U.S. Rep. Gerald “Gerry” Connolly, an outspoken Democrat who sought key reforms in the federal government while bringing transformational development to his populous Virginia district, died Wednesday. He was 75.

Connolly, who most recently held a prominent position as the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, served in Congress for more than 16 years.

He died at home in the company of family members, his family said in a statement. Connolly announced in 2024 that he had esophageal cancer and said a few months later that he planned to retire from Congress. His death leaves House Republicans with a 220-212 majority.

The spirited and at times bullheaded Fairfax Democrat became known for his voluble nature and willingness to engage in spirited debates. In one hearing, he accused Republicans of engaging in a witch hunt against the IRS, asking a witness if they ever read Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible.”

“I am heartbroken over the loss of my dear friend,” said Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia. “To me, he exemplified the very best of public service.” He said Connolly “met every challenge with tenacity and purpose, including his final battle with cancer, which he faced with courage, grace, and quiet dignity.”

A fixture of Virginia politics for three decades, Connolly was first elected to the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors in 1995. On the county board, he steered the transition of northern Virginia’s Tysons Corner from a traffic-heavy mall area to a downtown business hub.

In 2003, Connolly was elected board chairman, and he continued pushing for transportation investment that had been debated among officials for decades. Connolly sought billions in state and federal dollars to develop the regional rail system’s Silver Line connecting the national capital region to Tysons Corner.

Connolly’s dream was realized with the Silver Line’s opening in 2014, and eight years later, the rail line was extended an extra 11 miles to reach Dulles International Airport.

As the extension opened in 2022, Connolly said: “Doing big things is difficult — the world is filled with naysayers.”

Connolly’s local government experience launched his congressional career. He was elected in 2008 after flipping an open Republican-held seat by nearly 42,000 votes. In his victory speech, Connolly said he would use his position to ensure the federal bureaucracy is “a responsive, accountable instrument for the people we serve.”

“If we insist the government must work for all of our citizens again, we cannot fail,” Connolly said.

Connolly got his first taste of Congress while working as a staffer for the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in the 1980s. Decades later, Connolly became a member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

He also served as a member of the House Oversight Committee and led Democrats on subcommittees on government innovation and information technology.

Connolly cosponsored the 2010 Telework Enhancement Act, which requires federal agencies to allow a portion of their employees to telework at least one day a week. In 2014, he cosponsored another bill that reformed federal IT management and has since saved the government billions of dollars, according to the Government Accountability Office.

He also closely followed the financial burden of the slowing U.S. Postal Service, becoming a prominent voice accusing President Trump and former Postmaster General Louis DeJoy of seeking to winnow the postal service to suppress mail-in ballots during the 2020 presidential election.

Connolly reached a new milestone late last year as he was chosen ranking member of the House Oversight Committee. He defeated Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for the position. The victory came shortly after Connolly announced that he had been diagnosed with esophageal cancer and would undergo chemotherapy and immunotherapy.

As ranking member, Connolly called on inspectors general to investigate the Department of Government Efficiency. He and other Democrats also introduced a pair of resolutions demanding the Trump administration turn over documents and information about billionaire advisor Elon Musk’s potential conflicts of interest and the firings of federal workers.

He said in late April that after “grueling treatments,” he learned that the cancer had returned and that he decided to step down from his post on the committee and would not seek reelection.

“With no rancor and a full heart, I move into this final chapter full of pride in what we’ve accomplished together over 30 years,” he said.

Diaz writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — A Democratic lawmaker is launching a renegade effort to impeach President Trump, pushing past party leaders on Wednesday with an attempt to force a procedural vote in the U.S. House that is expected to fail.

Rep. Shri Thanedar of Michigan announced his intention to charge ahead, saying that as an immigrant to America he wants to do all he can to protect its Constitution and institutions from Trump’s lawlessness. His resolution contains seven articles of impeachment against the Republican president.

“Donald J. Trump has been committing crimes since day one — bribery, corruption, taking power from Congress, creating an unlawful office in DOGE, violating 1st Amendment rights, ignoring due process,” the congressman said earlier from the House floor.

It would be the historic third time Trump has faced impeachment efforts after being twice impeached during his first term as president — first in 2019 on charges related to withholding military aid to Ukraine as it confronted Russia and later on a charge of inciting insurrection over the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by a mob of his supporters. Trump was acquitted both times by the Senate.

Thanedar is not the only Democrat who has signaled impeachment efforts against Trump. But his decision to go it almost alone, without backing from party leadership, comes as he faces his own political challenges at home, with several primary opponents looking to unseat him in his Detroit-area congressional district.

Timing is also key. His resolution claiming Trump committed “high crimes and misdemeanors” comes as Trump is traveling in the Middle East in his first major trip abroad of his second term, violating a norm in American politics of not criticizing the president once he leaves the U.S.

But Thanedar said he was pressing ahead in part because of Trump’s trip abroad and the potential conflicts of interest as the president appears to be mixing his personal business dealings with his presidential duties and is considering accepting a lavish gift of an airplane from the Qatari government.

“My constituents want me to act,” Thanedar told the Associated Press late Tuesday.

“It’s time for us to stand up and speak. We can’t worry about, ‘Is this the right time?’ We can’t worry about, ‘Are we going to win this battle?’ It’s more about doing the right thing,” he said. “I took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution. So did Mr. Trump. He has violated his oath, and he’s doing unconstitutional activities. It’s time for someone to stand up and say that, and if that’s just me, then so be it.”

Thanedar is using a procedural tool to force a vote Wednesday on whether to proceed to the issue or shelve the matter.

One top Trump ally, Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, criticized Thanedar and dismissed the impeachment effort.

“It’s DOA,” she posted on social media.

Impeachment of a president or other U.S. officials, once rare, has become an increasingly common in Congress.

Republicans in the House opened an impeachment inquiry into then-President Biden, a Democrat, but stopped short of action. The Republicans in Congress did, however, impeach Biden’s Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. The Senate dismissed two articles of impeachment against Mayorkas, ending his trial.

Thanedar, who’s from India, has said he came to the United States without many resources. He said he loves the U.S. and wants to defend its Constitution and institutions.

When he took over the Detroit congressional district, it was the first time in decades the city was left without a Black lawmaker in Congress.

Mascaro, Brown and Askarinam write for the Associated Press.