Meet
Scott Peters
Environmental lawyer. San Diego's first City Council President. Port Chair. U.S. Congressman. Scott Peters has spent decades fixing things for San Diego, not fighting over them.
Environmental lawyer. San Diego's first City Council President. Port Chair. U.S. Congressman. Scott Peters has spent decades fixing things for San Diego, not fighting over them.
He's always believed government should work for people, not politics. Scott learned early that making a difference means standing up for what you believe in, then doing the hard work to make it happen.
His father, a Lutheran minister, worked on housing desegregation and race relations in Detroit during the turbulent 1960s. His mother worked as a secretary and got through college on student loans and work-study. Those experiences shaped Scott's belief that opportunity should be open to everyone, and that public service is about improving people's lives.
After Duke University, he worked as an economist at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, then earned his law degree at NYU. He came to San Diego more than 30 years ago and spent 16 years practicing environmental law, including as a Deputy County Counsel for San Diego County and running his own small firm.
Before Washington, Scott spent eight years on the San Diego City Council representing La Jolla and other northern neighborhoods in the city of San Diego, and his colleagues made him the city's first Council President three years running. His focus sounds simple but often isn't: making government work better.
He also changed how City Hall works. He helped give San Diego a strong mayor and a City Council that holds the budget accountable, brought in independent auditors to follow the money, hired the city's first Independent Budget Analyst, and made sure new buildings save energy and water.
Before Congress, Scott's record wasn't a list of bills. It was roads, schools, parks and beaches San Diegans use every day.
Fifteen years overdue when Scott took it on. He pushed it to the finish line in 2004, connecting thousands of families to their jobs.
Torrey Pines High was packed past 3,000 students. Scott got City Hall moving so Carmel Valley's second high school opened on time.
Helped build and pass the extension that put $14 billion into San Diego roads and transit. It won by about 3,000 votes countywide.
After the Mission Beach riot, Scott banned drinking on city beaches, then won the vote to make it permanent.
Teamed up with Surfrider and the Lung Association to ban smoking in city parks and on the beach. Fewer butts in the sand.
Twelve brand-new parks plus major upgrades across his council district, including the Nobel park and library in University City.
University City's job center had no transit at all. Scott helped create the SuperLoop, and demand was so strong it expanded.
Ended a six-year neighborhood fight by getting Caltrans to hand over surplus land. Teens got a skate park, and Hilltop Park stayed quiet.
As Chair of the San Diego Unified Port District, Scott oversaw the state tidelands in and around San Diego Bay, which generate billions in economic impact and support middle-class jobs for more than 40,000 San Diegans. When the Port started spending more than it took in, he cut $26 million in costs without a single layoff.
Scott has served on the boards of the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation, CleanTECH San Diego, and the UCSD Chancellor's Community Advisory Board, and chaired the Climate Initiative at The San Diego Foundation.
In 2013, Scott brought that same approach to Congress, and built a reputation for working across party lines when it gets results for San Diego. His plan became the blueprint for letting Medicare negotiate drug prices. His law gave every Purple Heart recipient full GI Bill benefits. And this year, his housing law made it cheaper to build homes people can afford. Most of his two dozen-plus laws had a Republican partner.
Some of it is personal. The guy who worked his way through college on student loans wrote the law that lets employers help pay off their workers' student debt, tax-free.
Scott has never believed the right letter next to your name is enough. The job is to listen, find common ground when you can, stand your ground when you have to, and get something done.
See everything he's gotten done →San Diego families are being squeezed by the cost of living. Housing is out of reach for too many people. Sewage from Mexico still closes our beaches in the South Bay. And the climate is changing faster than Washington is.
San Diego needs someone who knows how to get people in a room, work through the hard stuff and come out with results. Someone who cares less about whose idea it was, and more about whether it works.
Scott and Lynn, his wife of 40 years, live in La Jolla and have called the 50th District home for more than three decades. They have a grown daughter and son and recently welcomed a new grandchild.
Knock doors, make calls, put up a yard sign. From here to Nov. 3, every hour counts.
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