Bob Filner

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. 2025 He was 82. 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. He later pleaded guilty to a felony charge of restraining a woman and to two misdemeanor charges. A Representative from California; born in Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pa., September 4, 1942; B.A., Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., 1963; M.A., University of Delaware, Newark, Del., 1969; Ph.D., Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., 1973; faculty, San Diego State University, San Diego, Calif., 1970-1992; staff, United States Senator Hubert H. Humphrey of Minnesota, 1975; staff, United States Representative Donald M. Fraser of Minnesota, 1976; member, San Diego, Calif., school board, 1979-1983, president, 1982; staff, United States Representative Jim Bates of California, 1984; member of the San Diego, Calif., city council, 1987-1992; deputy mayor of San Diego, Calif., 1990; elected as a Democrat to the One Hundred Third and to the nine succeeding Congresses (January 3, 1993-present); chair, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs (One Hundred Tenth and One Hundred Eleventh Congresses). 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.