Carl DeMaio

Carl DeMaio arrived in San Diego in 2002 and has spent much of the time since pressing the same set of public arguments: against tax increases, for changes to government pensions and through campaigns that take policy questions directly to voters. He represented District 5 on the San Diego City Council from 2008 to 2012, then ran for mayor and twice for Congress before seeking state office. In 2024, voters elected him to represent Assembly District 75 with 57.02% of the vote. He is the first openly gay Republican elected to the California State Legislature. His public life combines elected office, ballot-measure organizing and media work used to advance political campaigns and causes.

BACKGROUND AND FORMATION

DeMaio was born on September 14, 1974, in Dubuque, Iowa. His parents, Carl Joseph DeMaio and Diane M. DeMaio, were teachers, and the family moved to Orange County in the late 1970s. He attended St. Catherine’s Military Academy, a Catholic school in Anaheim, through eighth grade.

In 1989, he received a scholarship to Georgetown Preparatory School, a Jesuit boarding school in Maryland. His father abandoned the family two weeks before his mother died of breast cancer in 1990; DeMaio was 15. He graduated from Georgetown Prep in 1993 and from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in 1996, with a degree in international politics and business.

His early work stayed close to government management. Between 1994 and 1999, he worked as director of planning for the Congressional Institute. In 2000, he joined the Reason Foundation to lead a bipartisan management-improvement project.

THE JOB BEFORE THE JOB

After college, DeMaio established the Performance Institute, a for-profit think tank. In 2003, he founded a second operation, the American Strategic Management Institute. He sold both organizations to the Thompson Publishing Group in late 2007.

The following year, he won a San Diego City Council seat with 66% of the vote. He represented District 5 and served as vice chair of the Natural Resources and Culture, Budget and Finance, and Audit committees. He was also the first Italian American elected to office in San Diego since the 1930s.

The committee assignments placed DeMaio in the city’s work of budgeting, oversight and administration. One of his council-era measures was Proposition B, which limited pension benefits for city employees. DeMaio was its primary author, and voters approved it on June 5, 2012. Pension policy would remain one of his recurring causes in San Diego and in statewide campaigns.

THE PATH TO SACRAMENTO

DeMaio filed to run for mayor in 2011. He finished first in the June 2012 primary with 31.42%, then lost the general election to Bob Filner with 47.5%.

On May 30, 2013, he announced a campaign for Congress. He placed second in the June 2014 primary with 36% and lost to Scott Peters in the general election, receiving 48.41%. DeMaio faced multiple allegations of sexual misconduct during his political campaigns and denied all of them.

He returned to congressional politics on August 5, 2019, announcing a campaign for California’s 50th Congressional District. He finished third in the 2020 primary. Four years later, he ran for Assembly District 75 and won.

Across the years between offices, DeMaio continued political work through media platforms and organized campaigns. He has used signature gathering to place proposed measures before voters, most notably the Gas Tax Repeal Initiative. The method has been consistent: develop a policy campaign, organize supporters and seek a decision at the ballot box.

THE POLICY SIGNATURE

DeMaio’s clearest policy signature is opposition to tax increases and support for pension reform. Those causes appeared in his City Council work, in Proposition B and in later campaigns across California. His use of signature gathering and ballot measures is part of the record as well: it allows an organized campaign to move a proposal outside the ordinary work of a legislative body and put it before voters.

The interests most plainly present in that record are those of taxpayers opposed to higher taxes and voters who want limits on public pension costs. His media platforms have supplied another channel for promoting those campaigns and causes, while his elected offices have given him a place inside government to pursue the same subjects.

The offices and election results have varied. Recurring items in his policy inventory include taxes, pensions, government management and campaigns to put measures before voters.