Aguirre: Pursuing the Notion that Good Triumphs Over Evil

With a childhood that includes a father he never knew, nomadic moves across the Southwest, cantaloupe picking and living alone in a trailer as a teen-ager, San Diego City Council 8th District candidate Michael Aguirre says, half-jokingly, that he has “no need to invent a log cabin” for his political biography.

“The reality is good enough,” the 38-year-old lawyer said, laughing.

The youngest of three boys, Aguirre was born in San Diego to a Spanish father and a mother whose own father was Mexican. Raised by his maternal grandparents during his infancy, Aguirre’s parents divorced when he was 3 years old. When his mother married an appliance salesman, the entire family moved to El Centro.

Over the next decade, his mother’s and stepfather’s sales jobs took the family to Yuma, Indio, Sacramento, Salt Lake City and Phoenix. When the family prepared for another move to Albuquerque in the mid-1960s, Aguirre, who by then was in high school in Phoenix, “decided that this was where I was jumping off the train.” Staying behind in a trailer--”I was very popular in my senior class,” he jokes--Aguirre paid the rent by mowing lawns and other odd jobs.

The instability of Aguirre’s own roots and the pressures of being on his own as a teen-ager spawned a life-long fascination with American history and biographies.

“Coming from a broken family, I was drawn to these inspiring stories about strong leaders and their families,” Aguirre said. “That hasn’t changed. It’s kind of a joke among people who know me that the way to really score points with me is to go with me to browse in bookstores.”

Avid Movie Buff

As a youth, Aguirre also became an avid movie buff--a hobby that played a role in his ultimate decision to become a lawyer.

“I love all those old movies with John Wayne and war or cowboys--movies where good prevails over evil,” Aguirre explained. “That’s the same attitude I have about the law.”

Aguirre received his undergraduate degree at Arizona State University and his law degree from UC Berkeley. He was active in student politics at both campuses, winning election as vice president at Arizona and vice president and later co-president at Berkeley. He also gained a reputation as a voter-registration whiz, and spent the summer of 1970 in Massachusetts putting those talents to use in the post-Chappaquiddick reelection campaign of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.).

After college, Aguirre worked in the state legislative counsel’s office in Sacramento and, after passing the bar exam, became an assistant U.S. attorney in San Diego, where he led an investigation into a labor union pension fraud. In 1976, he moved to Washington, where, as a staff lawyer for the U.S. Senate’s permanent subcommittee on investigations, he probed Teamsters President Frank Fitzsimmons and the alleged use of union pension funds for loans to organized crime figures.

In 1980, Aguirre opened his own law practice in San Diego, specializing in securities and investment fraud, with his expertise on organized crime also drawing him into several high-profile cases--among them, a nationally celebrated trial in which he helped defend Penthouse magazine against libel charges stemming from a story linking the La Costa resort to organized crime figures.

High-Visibility Issues

Three years later, when San Diego County Sheriff John Duffy was nominated to serve on President Reagan’s Commission on Organized Crime, Aguirre helped publicize Duffy’s association with purported underworld leaders at La Costa. After months of controversy, Duffy resigned from the commission--in the process, lambasting Aguirre for “regurgitating” old allegations and speculating that Aguirre intended to run against him in 1986, which did not happen.

While he concedes that his legal practice may seem rather dry “in comparison to ‘Perry Mason,”’ Aguirre, who lives in Burlingame with his wife and two young children, describes its satisfactions this way:

“Many of my clients are elderly people who have been victimized by fraud artists who took away all or most of their life savings,” said Aguirre, who helped win a $40-million settlement for investors in the now-defunct La Jolla investment firm of J. David & Co. “When people come into my office, they’re totally dejected and don’t trust anyone or anything. To hand that person a check for maybe 75% of what he lost and see how it helps restore his faith is a tremendous satisfaction. I hope I can do the same thing in politics.”

But Aguirre’s penchant for latching onto high-visibility issues--among them, the J. David case, a lawsuit seeking to block the convention center project and the organized crime cases--have caused some to view him as simply an opportunistic charlatan.

“He’s always impressed me as a troublemaker, a headline seeker,” said one city official, who requested anonymity. “He’s someone who flies on the agony of others. I think he just likes to see his name in the paper.”

Aguirre’s first bid for elective office ended in a lopsided defeat in a 1982 Democratic congressional primary to then-Supervisor, now-Rep. Jim Bates (D-San Diego)--a race in which he was seen as an upstart seeking to begin his political career at a rather high level. That perception, in turn, reinforced the brash, abrasive reputation that he had previously earned in legal circles.

“That image, the question about credibility, is probably my biggest disappointment,” Aguirre said. “My style contributed to it, but I think it’s also partly because San Diego tends to be somewhat indifferent about its problems.

‘A Loose Cannon’

“We’re the methamphetamine capital of the country, have one of the worst AIDS rates, some think we’re the fraud capital, we had a mayor and councilman kicked out of office. But most people don’t seem to get very upset about that. And if you do get upset and try to do something about it, like I do, you’re criticized. If Jesus were alive today in San Diego, they’d call him a loose cannon.”

Aguirre’s law practice provides a financially comfortable life--allowing him, for example, to spend $125,000 in personal funds on his race to date. If elected, Aguirre plans to retain an economic interest in the law firm, but said that his income would “drop substantially,” a prospect that does not deter him.

“Jousting in court is fun, but after 13 years of it, I wouldn’t mind a change in life style,” Aguirre said. “Now, I can see the problems, but can’t do much about a lot of them. Being in a position to do something about these issues--that would be the ideal for me. If I could do that, I think I could enjoy life more.”

District 8

Next month, San Diegans will elect four new members of the San Diego City Council. These short profiles of 8th District contenders Michael Aguirre and Bob Filner are intended to help acquaint voters with the candidates’ personal backgrounds. This is the second in a series of profiles on the two finalists in each of the council races.