Candidate for
Mayor; City of San Diego

Michael J. Aguirre was born September 12, 1949 at Mercy Hospital in San Diego, California.

Aguirre graduated from Camelback High School in Phoenix, AZ. To support himself, he worked as a gas station attendant and picked cantaloupes one summer in Yuma, AZ for $1 an hour, earning enough money to buy his first car.

Aguirre attended Arizona State University (ASU), where he earned his Bachelor of Science degree in 1971. While at ASU, he was elected Student Body Vice President for Social Change. Before entering law school, he was appointed the National Field Director of "The Student Vote," a privately-funded organization that conducted voter registration drives on college campuses.

In 1971, Aguirre enrolled in Boalt Hall Law School at the University of California, Berkeley and earned his J.D. in 1974.

Aguirre passed the California Bar exam in 1974 and was appointed an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the U.S. Attorney's office in San Diego. In 1975, he successfully directed a year-long Grand Jury investigation into a pension racketeering case, helping to save the pensions and earned benefits for hundreds of San Diegans.

In 1976, Aguirre was appointed Assistant Counsel to the U.S. Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, where he led an investigation into a national employees benefit scheme that was defrauding investors of millions of dollars in earned and future benefits.

After leaving the Senate Subcommittee, Aguirre practiced civil law in Los Angeles from 1977-1980. While in Los Angeles, he became a Senior Lecturer and an Adjunct Professor of History at the University of Southern California, where he taught a class on the history of organized crime in America. He also organized a national conference on the presidency of John F. Kennedy.

In 1980, Aguirre opened his own law practice in San Diego, which specialized in securities and investment fraud. He successfully prosecuted cases against several companies, including First Pension Corp., American Principals Holdings, Inc., and J. David & Company, and was able to recover millions of dollars for thousands of Southern California investors.

In 1993, Aguirre returned to Yuma, AZ to represent Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers (UFW) in a protracted legal battle against a major lettuce grower that Chavez, who died during the trial, was seeking better working conditions from. Aguirre won a reversal of a $3.7 million judgment against the UFW by Salinas-based Bruce Church, Inc.

Aguirre was elected San Diego City Attorney in 2004 and served the City and its residents for four years. As City Attorney, he recovered and saved taxpayers over $250 million from legal cases of which the City was engaged.

In 2008, he established Aguirre Morris & Severson LLP with two colleagues from the City Attorney's office. In private practice, Aguirre led a successful effort to stop San Diego Gas & Electric from imposing on ratepayers hundreds of millions of dollars in costs caused by the utility's equipment during a 2007 wildfire. Aguirre also founded the National Center for Regulatory Reform, which has issued extensive reports on the stock market crash of 2008.