Brian Bilbray

Brian Phillip Bilbray (born January 28, 1951) is an American Republican politician who represented parts of San Diego County in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2001 and again from 2006 to 2013.

Bilbray was Chairman of the House Immigration Reform Caucus and a member of the influential House Energy and Commerce Committee.

His subcommittee assignments on the Energy and Commerce Committee were as follows: Oversight and Investigations, Communication and Technology, and Energy and Power.

Bilbray was born in Coronado, California, and grew up in Imperial Beach, California.

He graduated from Mar Vista High School, where he played on the football team as a linebacker, and attended Southwestern College, a community college in Chula Vista, California.

He worked as a tax consultant before entering politics.

A Roman Catholic, he and his wife, Karen (née Walker), have five children, one of whom, Brian Pat, is a current member of the Imperial Beach city council.

Bilbray is a cousin of former Nevada Democratic Representative James Bilbray.

An avid surfer, he has compared surfing to politics.

Bilbray became interested in politics when an extensive program of eminent domain was proposed for Imperial Beach.

The 53rd was one of several marginal districts to go Republican in that cycle.

He ran successfully for the city council as a populist, serving during 1976–1978, and was mayor during 1978–1985.

As mayor, Bilbray attempted to build a yacht marina in the Tijuana Estuary and to build a 1.5 mile breakwater off the beach of Imperial Beach.

Both projects were stopped by the opposition of local surfers and environmentalists.

The Tijuana River Estuary is now a National Estuarine Research Reserve and California State Park.

The breakwater project was halted with the help of the then fledgling Surfrider Foundation.

From 1985 to 1995, Bilbray was a member of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors.

In 1994, Bilbray won the Republican nomination for the California's 49th congressional district, now the 53rd district, which included most of San Diego, and defeated freshman Democrat Lynn Schenk in the Republican landslide of that year.

Bilbray was reelected in 1996 and 1998.

In 2000, he was defeated by State Assemblywoman Susan Davis.

In 2001, Bilbray registered as a federal lobbyist.

His clients included San Diego Gas and Electric Company; the Viejas Band of Kumeyaay Indians; the San Diego Regional Airport Authority; Conquer Cancer and Alzheimer's Now; Los Angeles County; and Federation for American Immigration Reform.

Bilbray is a member of the ReFormers Caucus of Issue One.

In March 2005, Bilbray moved to Carlsbad, California, to take care of his mother, who owns a home there.

The race to assume Cunningham's seat was highly contested, especially on the Republican side, with 14 Republicans (compared with only 2 Democrats) officially running for the position.

Leading up to the initial all-candidate election that would determine the parties' candidates in a runoff election, Bilbray was in a virtual tie with Republican businessman Eric Roach, slightly ahead of former State Assemblyman Howard Kaloogian.

Four days before the election, businessman Alan Uke, one of the major Republican candidates, ran an attack ad accusing Roach of outsourcing thousands of jobs at the expense of American workers.

Bilbray ran in the 2006 special election to fill the vacancy in California's 50th congressional district caused by the resignation in December 2005 of fellow Republican Duke Cunningham, who pleaded guilty to felony charges of conspiracy and tax evasion, and subsequently went to jail.

In the initial all-party special election on April 11, 2006, Bilbray was the Republican candidate with the most votes, receiving 15% of the total vote to Roach's 15%.

He then faced the top vote getters of all the other parties in a runoff election on June 6, 2006: Democrat Francine Busby, Libertarian Paul King, and William Griffith, an independent.

During the campaign, Arizona Senator John McCain canceled a planned fundraiser for Bilbray at the last minute, after Bilbray called McCain's immigration bill "amnesty" for illegal immigrants.

Bilbray won the runoff with 49% of the vote, and was sworn in on June 13, 2006, as a member of the Congress.

The Republican Party considered this a bellwether race because this district had "the perfect storm in favor of the Democrats" according to Ken Mehlman, the RNC Chairman at the time of the special election.

The Democratic National Committee's Voting Rights Institute raised several concerns about the fairness and accuracy of the vote count.

An election contest lawsuit sought a hand recount.

However, Bilbray was sworn in before the vote count was official.

The court dismissed the suit on the basis that, once the House of Representatives had sworn in Bilbray, the court lacked jurisdiction to hear the challenge.

Bilbray and Busby each won their party's primary, and faced each other again in the November general election.

Bilbray defeated Busby by a margin of 54%–44%.

Bilbray ran as an opponent of illegal immigration.