Mike Aguirre
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Michael Jules Aguirre (born 1949) is the City Attorney for the City of San Diego, California. A frequent political candidate and prominent figure in San Diego politics, Aguirre was elected as city attorney in 2004.
Aguirre earned a Bachelor's degree in political science at Arizona State University in 1971. He earned a law degree from the Boalt Hall at the University of California at Berkeley in 1974. He earned a Master's degree from John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in 1989.
He married Kathy Aguirre, and the couple had two children, Arthur and Emilie. Kathy and Mike later divorced.
Aguirre worked as Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Department of Justice, and directed a grand jury investigation of pension racketeering. He was then appointed as assistant counsel to the U.S. Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
After leaving his government work, Aguirre set up his own firm specializing in securities fraud. His small office became known as tough, persistent advocate for investors who had been defrauded, often in complex real estate transactions. Aguirre and his colleagues aggressively pursued recovery in these cases, usually following elaborate paper trails designed to conceal assets or artificially inflate the value of the underlying securities.
As Aguirre built his reputation as a fierce, smart, and sometimes brash courtroom opponent, he also carved his unique role as one of San Diego’s most prominent political gadflies. Aguirre ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 1982, and for San Diego City Council in 1987 and 1993. Aguirre also made his mark by filing lawsuits to intervene in what he saw as a pattern of cronyism and corruption. Along the way, his aggressive tactics and sometimes profane personal style earned him enemies and supporters from many corners of the southern California political scene. In 1987, for example, long-time Democratic congressman Lionel Van Deerlin endorsed Aguirre’s first city council bid. In that same race, former San Diego Sheriff John Duffy worked behind the scenes to launch a last-minute inflammatory direct mail initiative against Aguirre.
In the 1990s, Aguirre continued his securities practice, his crusade of self-directed public interest lawsuits, and his electoral campaigns. In 1990 Aguirre allied with the Chicano Federation to file a successful federal voting rights lawsuit to overturn San Diego’s redistricting. Aguirre went to court to throw out a 1995 contract between the City of San Diego and the San Diego Chargers football team. In the contract, the city agreed to issue $60 million of bonds to renovate the Chargers’s stadium, and, in a controversial clause, promised to constantly maintain the stadium as a state-of-the-art venue. Aguirre’s suit and the ensuing scandal surrounding the maintenance clause compelled the city to renegotiate with the Chargers in 1998. The new contract proved controversial as well because it compelled the city to buy any unsold tickets at Chargers games, at public expense.
Aguirre ran for San Diego City Attorney in 2004, in the midst of a massive financial crisis and investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The chaos began in the summer of 2003, when scandal erupted over a pension deal that municipal employees received between 1996 and 2002. Workers were given increased benefits during this period, but the city did not contribute enough to municipal pension funds to cover the increased benefits. The resulting deficit of some $1.4 billion left the city’s finances in a shambles, and made it virtually impossible to issue municipal bonds.
Voters elected Aguirre city attorney in November, 2004.
