Mike Schaefer, an 87-year-old disbarred attorney with a misdemeanor spousal abuse conviction, a $1.83 million slumlord judgment against him, and a permanent restraining order obtained by actor Brad Garrett, filed Tuesday to run for Congress in California's 48th District. He filed from a Las Vegas address.
This is what Democrats mean when they talk about expanding the map.
Schaefer joins a handful of other Democrats hoping to flip CA-48, a seat currently held by Republican Darrell Issa and one of five GOP-held districts now in play after Proposition 50 redrew California's congressional boundaries. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the new maps on Feb. 4, and Democrats have wasted no time trying to capitalize. The district shifted from formerly Republican-leaning to what's being characterized as toss-up or even left-leaning territory—not because voters changed, but because the lines did.
Schaefer has run for office approximately 33 times over more than 50 years, according to the Daily Caller. He usually loses badly.
He was elected the youngest San Diego City Council member ever at age 27 in 1965 and served two terms. After that, the wins dried up. He pulled 0.98% in the 1971 San Diego mayoral race. He managed 2.5% in a 2016 Nevada congressional primary. He started as a Republican before switching to the Democratic Party around 2004—a conversion that coincided not with any discernible ideological awakening but with the discovery that one party's ballot lines were easier to get on in the districts where he wanted to run.
The one bright spot: in 2018, at age 80, Schaefer won a seat on the California State Board of Equalization, beating a Republican state senator. He was re-elected in 2022 with his party's endorsement, dubbing himself "The Equalizer." He is now termed out of that position, which apparently means it's time for Congress.
Schaefer was disbarred in both California and Nevada in 2001 for serious ethics violations. The Nevada Supreme Court cited a litany of offenses:
He has not been reinstated despite multiple appeals, the most recent in 2014.
Then there's the housing record. In 1981, Schaefer owned a 64-unit building in the mid-Wilshire area of Los Angeles for eight months. A 1986 jury in Los Angeles Superior Court awarded his former tenants $1.83 million—a record at the time. The building was found overrun with rats, cockroaches, and sewage backups that caved in ceilings and floors. Street gangs operated inside the property. Schaefer blamed the gangs for blocking improvements.
That wasn't an isolated episode. In 1979, he faced fire-code violations and threats of jail time in San Diego over unsafe conditions in properties he controlled. In 1982, he was involved in a rent dispute case in Arizona. He owned rundown apartments in Baltimore that drew complaints over alleged neglect and poor maintenance. The man earned the "millionaire slumlord" label across multiple states and multiple decades.
In 1993, Schaefer was convicted of misdemeanor spousal abuse. He later served jail time for violating the terms of his probation.
By 2013, actor Brad Garrett—best known for "Everybody Loves Raymond"—secured a permanent restraining order against Schaefer in Las Vegas Justice Court. The dispute reportedly began over a complimentary show ticket at the MGM Grand and escalated from there, with Garrett accusing Schaefer of stalking and harassment.
The court ordered Schaefer to stay 100 feet away from Garrett at all times, banned him from the MGM Grand entirely, and required him to obtain court permission before filing any future lawsuits against Garrett or his staff. Schaefer had allegedly kept pushing unwanted promotion offers on Garrett and refused to stop. Garrett cited Schaefer's history of violence and erratic behavior in seeking the order.
A man who needs a judge's permission to file a lawsuit wants voters to send him to Washington to write laws.
Schaefer is a sideshow, but the circus he wandered into matters. Proposition 50 handed Democrats a redrawn map that puts five Republican congressional seats in jeopardy. Republicans challenged the maps in court, arguing they were drawn in at least one area to favor Hispanic voters in violation of federal voting rights law. The Supreme Court disagreed on Feb. 4, and the maps stand.
The term for this is gerrymandering, though polite company only uses that word when Republicans draw the lines. When Democrats do it in California through a voter-approved ballot measure, it's called "independent redistricting" or "democracy in action." The result is the same: lines redrawn to predetermine outcomes.
Issa is running for re-election in November in a district that no longer resembles the one his voters chose him to represent. Democrats smell blood—and their recruiting standards reflect the urgency. When your redistricting scheme is so aggressive that an 87-year-old disbarred, convicted, restraining-order-carrying perennial candidate sees a viable path, the maps aren't expanding democracy. They're diluting it.
The California Democratic Party endorsed Schaefer for his Board of Equalization re-election in 2022. That endorsement came decades after his disbarment, his spousal abuse conviction, his jail time, and the largest slumlord judgment in Los Angeles history. None of it disqualified him in the eyes of the party apparatus. None of it gave anyone pause.
This is the party that lectures the country about character, about protecting women, about housing as a human right. They endorsed a man convicted of beating his wife, who let tenants live with rats and sewage. They didn't just tolerate him—they put their brand behind him.
Now he's running for Congress, and the silence from California Democrats tells you everything about what "standards" mean when a seat is in play. The district is new. The candidate is the same man he's been for 50 years.
Thirty-three campaigns and counting. The voters have answered him 32 times. He keeps asking.
