Senate Democratic lawmakers thought they had dispatched former California Rep. Darrell Issa by blocking his nomination to a Trump administration post. But now he’s about to be their colleague, again, on Capitol Hill.
Prior to running for former GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter Jr.’s open seat in California’s 50th Congressional District this year, the 18-year California Republican House member left Congress before the 2018 mid-term cycle. Issa declined to seek reelection that year in a different district to the north, which has since gone Democratic.
With Issa out of office, President Trump appointed him to be the director of the U.S. Trade and Development Agency.
However, his appointment was dashed when New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, repeatedly blocked his nomination in committee. That led Issa to withdraw his nomination and run for Congress again.
Issa’s vast wealth from his car alarm fortune, along with his national name ID from years as an aggressive House Oversight chairman during the Obama administration, aided his journey back to Capitol Hill this cycle.
What exactly sunk Issa’s nomination remains unclear.
Sen. Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat, cited “very serious concerns about a number of items, some of which we’ve discussed publicly, and some of which we hadn’t.”
Kaine told the Washington Examiner, “I don’t think you basically turn a blind eye to potentially disqualifying stuff.”
As for Issa’s return to the House after a two-year break, Kaine said that “If his constituents want him, they can have him, but the reason that Sen. Menendez was so concerned was because of items that would have made proceeding on the nomination, probably bad for the country.”
Menendez didn’t want to discuss Issa’s return to Congress, telling the Washington Examiner curtly, “Good for him,” before entering an elevator.
