Congressman Darrell Issa represents the people of California’s 49th Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives, a seat he has held since 2001. The 49th District includes Camp Pendleton, the largest Marine Corps training facility in the United States, and the northern portions of San Diego County and southwest Riverside County. Congressman Issa and his wife Kathy live in Vista, CA. They have one son, William, and celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary in 2010.
As a senior in high school, Issa enlisted in the United States Army. Through his Army service, he received an ROTC scholarship and graduated with a degree in business from Sienna Heights University in Adrian, Michigan. Upon graduation, Issa was commissioned as an Army officer, and ultimately obtained the rank of captain. He completed his active-duty military service in 1980 and turned his interests to the private sector.
At the height of his career in business, Issa served as CEO of California-based Directed Electronics, a company that Issa founded and built in the mid-1990s to become the nation’s largest manufacturer of vehicle anti-theft devices, including the highly-successful Viper system. In 1994, Issa was named Entrepreneur of the Year by Inc. Magazine, Ernst & Young and The San Diego Union Tribune. During his leadership of Directed Electronics, Issa served as chairman of the Consumer Electronics Association, an organization of 2000 companies within the consumer technology industry that hosts the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. When he stepped down as CEO to serve as a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Directed Electronics employed nearly 200 people.
As a Congressman and leader in California grassroots politics, Issa has championed the cause of smart, efficient government, and has pushed legislation to balance the federal budget and promote transparency across the federal bureaucracy. In 2003, Issa was the architect behind the successful popular uprising to recall former Democratic California Governor Gray Davis.
Issa currently is a member of the House Judiciary Committee and the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, where he serves as the Ranking Republican Member. Previously, Issa served on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the Foreign Affairs Committee, the Energy & Commerce Committee, and the Small Business Committee. As the holder of 37 patents himself, Issa has been vigilant about protecting the intellectual property rights of artists and other entrepreneurs to help protect America’s position at the forefront of innovation and creativity in the entertainment and technology industries. His successful efforts to fight human trafficking along the United States border has resulted in tougher laws, stiffer penalties, and more consistent enforcement. His watchful concern to guarantee that U.S. taxpayers receive the royalties they are owed from mineral interests on federal lands exposed fraud and mismanagement at the Mineral Management Service (MMS) in 2006.
In 2008, when Congress was asked to pass the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) in the wake of an historic financial crisis, Issa stood by his instincts as a businessman and opposed giving a blank-check bailout to Wall Street – he voted against all bailouts during the financial crisis. Refusing to give up and concede to those who favored a bailout-centered response to this and future financial failures, Issa put forward a proposal to create a bipartisan commission to uncover the root causes of the financial crisis. This idea was passed into law in early 2009 and the investigation commenced in January 2010. Issa expects the results will reveal government mistakes and protect U.S. taxpayers from future runaway government intervention in the financial and housing markets.
Recognizing his success as a Congressional watchdog of taxpayer dollars, at the beginning of the 111th Congress House Republicans tapped Issa to serve as the top Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which is the main investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives charged with the protecting the interests of U.S. taxpayers and eliminating waste, fraud and abuse in the federal bureaucracy. In the first year of his leadership, the committee has undertaken numerous detailed investigations of the Countrywide Financial VIP Program that benefitted government officials with special reduced-rate mortgage loans, the illegal use of taxpayer dollars by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), the decades-old misplaced government agenda to manipulate the U.S. housing market through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that created the housing crisis, the politicization of science at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and a broad investigation into the financial crisis of 2008-2009.
As a fiscal conservative committed firmly to low taxes and free markets, Issa has opposed the rise of out-of-control government spending and fought tirelessly for the responsible, transparent use of taxpayer dollars. He’s pushed to achieve more whistleblower protections for those who report waste, fraud and abuse in the federal bureaucracy. And he’s offered substantive reform initiatives to open up government so that Americans know what’s happening in Washington and can become more democratically engaged in the day-to-day oversight of their government.
First, the program worked. Since 2004, more than 3,000 underprivileged students received the opportunity to pursue their dream of a better education. When asked why they wanted their children to attend private schools of their choice, parents cited safety and higher academic standards as primary factors. A recent study by The Heritage Foundation found that when scholarship recipients are given the chance to learn in safer schools, they achieve higher test scores.
Second, the scholarships served to mitigate the many cultural and economic pressures that keep the majority of disadvantaged students in failing public schools. It’s true that public education in America needs comprehensive reform, but there is no reason why deserving children in the worst schools should continue to suffer while President Obama dreams up other ways to solve the systemic problems.
Third, the bipartisan support that the program has received demonstrates its popular appeal. Senators from Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) to Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) to Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and George Voinovich (R-Ohio) are standing together for the program’s reauthorization. Former D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams called the program “a lifeline to hope for thousands of families,” and the head of Sidwell Friends—the private school where President Obama sends his daughters—has urged Congress to “keep the windows open…and unlock even more.” Surely the president is willing to give these voices as much consideration as he does the powerful teachers’ unions who vehemently oppose school choice.
It is troubling that the Obama administration pushed so hard to end a program that cost a meager $13 million to benefit thousands of poor children. It is appalling that he was willing to do so while dumping hundreds of billions of dollars into failing insurance giants, bankrupt auto manufacturers and the government-backed mortgage lenders who caused the current economic crisis, all the while driving our federal budget to the highest deficits in history.
One wonders where, exactly, this president’s priorities lie.
Justice Clarence Thomas has rightly noted that “the failure to provide education to poor urban children perpetuates a vicious cycle of poverty, dependence, criminality, and alienation that continues for the rest of their lives.”
With this in mind, Congress should reauthorize the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program and prudently invest taxpayer dollars in the promise of quality education for America’s children.
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) is ranking member on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
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