Candidate for
Member, Republican Party County Central Committee; County of San Diego; Assembly District 78

Mike German was born and raised in Gary, Indiana, and was graduated from Lew Wallace High School with Honors in 1970. In high school, Mike swam competitively, taught swimming at an inner-city YMCA and spent his summers as a lifeguard on Lake Michigan. He attended Wabash College as a Hoosier Scholar for two years, where he was on the swim team, became a member of The Sigma Chi Fraternity and was on the Dean's List, until he received a draft lottery number of 8. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1972, was selected as Outstanding Recruit in boot camp and served in the Sixth Fleet as one of it's first seagoing law clerks until Honorably Discharged in 1975. He completed his undergraduate education at the University of Illinois in Urbana in 1977, complementing his major in History with a double minor in English and Political Science, and again placing on the Dean's List. In his free time, Mike continues to swim, bicycle and travel. He is a member of the Olympic Club, where he is a registered U.S. Masters Swimmer, and served as National Legal Affairs Director for the League of American Bicyclists from 1992-1994.

After living and working in Ann Arbor, Michigan for two years, Mike moved to San Francisco to begin law school at the University of San Francisco, from which he was graduated in 1981. Continuing his interest in matters maritime, he worked during law school and afterwards with Acret & Perrochet, one of San Francisco's premiere admiralty "boutiques" from 1979 to 1984, first as a clerk and then as an associate attorney after being admitted to the California Bar. Mike was then a partner in the firm of German & Siggins with Peter J. Siggins, his longtime friend and colleague, who is now Governor Arnold Schwarzennegger's Legal Affairs Director. From 1987 until 2000 Mike was a sole practitioner in San Francisco who handled cases throughout California, including San Deigo. In 2000, Mike joined the Criminal Law Division of the California Attorney General's Office, where he continues to practice today representing the California Department of Corrections. Mike also served with distinction as an arbitratator in the San Francisco and Contra Costa Superior Courts.

Mike's legal career spans over twenty-one years of practice. Because he has argued cases on both sides of key issues affecting not only San Diego County but our larger society as well, he is uniquely equipped for the legislative, debate and policymaking tasks required of him on its Republican Central Committee. His legal work has been recognized as outstanding: three times in the past decade, Mike was included in "Who's Who in American Law," the "A-List" of the legal profession.

Mike's interest in politics began with what he observed growing up: the dually debilitating effects of political corruption in one-party communities and of environmental pollution in one-industry towns. He learned that political diversity is as important to ensuring political rectitude as is competition of any other kind, and therefore immersed himself in Republican politics beginning with his work on former Congressman - and fellow Chicagolander - Tom Campbell's last California State Senate campaign in 1993. During this time, Mike also ran for the San Francisco seat on the California Bar Board of Governors, focusing on getting the Bar back to its basic functions of enforcing discipline and overseeing continuing education programs, and away from engaging in special interest advocacy. While Mike lost this election, his first, his platform for Bar reform was later seized upon by then-Governor Pete Wilson in his own efforts to reform California's legal profession.

In 1996, Mike ran for and was elected to the San Francisco Republican County Central Committee, where he was soon selected as its General Counsel, a position he held through 2001. He quickly established a reputation as a law and order moderate with habits of hard work, strong, but succint and collegial, debate, and for his ability to get along with his fellow committeemembers, despite their ideological differences. He was appointed to the California State GOP Central Committee and is now serving his third term there.

Mike first became active in Log Cabin Republicans in 1994 and served as President of its San Francisco chapter, one of the first such clubs in the nation, from 1997 through 2000, after rising through its officers' ranks and reaffirming his ability to put on productive fundraisers. He had earlier shown this same skill as a member of Bay Area Lawyers for Individual Freedom (BALIF), where he was widely credited with turning its annual dinners into the organization's most profitable fundraising events. He continues to serve Log Cabin as President Emeritus of its San Diego Club, as General Counsel of its statewide organization and in 2000 he received the Leonard Matlovich Award for his efforts on Log Cabin's behalf.

Now, he seeks to make the Grand Old Party a better party. Mike continues to work for an inclusive GOP that recognizes and respects the division between church and state, the differences between public and private functions, including which are best equipped to do either, and the need for real diversity of opinion, both in the Big Tent of the GOP and in society as a whole. Specifically,

• Mike is strongly Pro-Choice but understands and respects the values that faith represents and reflects on our private characters without allowing it to control public institutions or influence our private beliefs. There is a place for religion - in churches - and there is a place for the state - and that place is not in our homes and private lives.

• Having seen and lived in cities where public safety has deteriorated because of lax law enforcement, Mike stands for a strict and fair approach in dealing with crime, whether on the streets or in corporate boardrooms. He supports the "broken windows" theory of policing that Rudy Giuliani used so successfully in New York and strongly supports full funding and manning for all San Diego police and fire fighting forces.

• Mike has a demonstrated record of working for equal rights for ALL American citizens. His record in court and in the public forum shows he is not afraid to take on difficult or controversial cases or issues, from protecting the rights of all citizens and voters, to speaking out plainly on issues and controversies and offering workable solutions to resolve them. He'll do the same on the San Diego GOP Central Committee just as he did on San Francisco's and continues to do as a member of the California Republican Party.

• As a free market exponent, Mike is opposed to unregulated and unlimited welfare of all kinds, whether individual or corporate, and will work to continue welfare reform and expand criminal prosecutions for illegal business behavior, whether in boardrooms, stock exchanges or political caucuses. He supports reforming disclosure rules for stock options and preventing IPOs from being offered to governmental officials who are charged with regulating them. Because only a fair market can be a free market, Mike will strongly support and expand consumer rights wherever they help to level the playing field.

• As a Bonita homeowner and past president of his condominium association, Mike is keenly aware of the issues presented by the lack of affordable housing in San Diego County and of the need to properly utilize property taxes collected from those who pay them. He supports zero-based budgeting, and will actively work for construction of affordable owner-occupied housing without overtaxing the environment in which its built or the homeowners who live in it.

• Because we cannot grow as individuals or as a society unless we are equipped with the basic tools to do so, Mike is strongly supportive of all efforts to improve our education system. "All efforts" means just that - and includes charter schools, school vouchers, tax credits and other alternatives to established school systems that will make public schools compete for good students and produce a good product in the form of educated students. As the son of a high school math teacher, Mike also recognizes that parents must be educated to ensure they provide a supportive environment at home for their kids to learn. Together, a positive home environment and competent schools equipped with proper facilities, programs and teachers will ensure that we have the raw material - our children - to meet the challenges imposed by an increasingly complex world.

• Mike supports President Bush's economic policies wholeheartedly and will work to expand tax cuts as much as possible by reducing the superfluous government programs that keep taxes high, especially on low and middle-income taxpayers who can afford to pay them least. The only tinkering he would do with the President's proposed tax cut would be to increase the cuts for low and middle income taxpayers, who need this relief most of all - and NOW! As a veteran, Mike knows the difference between military preparedness and excessive expenditures and will work to ensure an efficient, not a bloated, national defense.

• Because Mike enjoys the outdoors and appreciates a clean environment, he will work strongly for strict implementation and enforcement of the strictest air and water pollution laws, along with environmentally sound public works, such as California High-Speed Rail. As an avid bicyclist, he will work for bike-friendly transportation and expansion of the Rails-to-Trails program. He will aggressively work to restore Chula Vista's bayfront properties to their highest and best use without compromising the integrity of the bay itself. He supports California's stricter air quality standards, for both vehicles and businesses, but will not allow environmental terrorists to hijack either the environmental movement or the private property or necessary public projects which are equally part of the evolving world we live in. We CAN have our cake and eat it too in balancing the environment with controlled growth!

• Recognizing that legal, controlled immigration, the same kind that allowed his own ancestors to come to this country in the early 1900s and assimilate into our American culture, is what made our nation great, Mike will work to make the reformed INS more efficient in all of its operations. As a lawyer who fought and won against the INS in several cases, Mike knows its shortcomings and how to correct them. Recognizing that illegal, uncontrolled immigration, the kind that threatens to undo our culture by proceeding too fast for assimilation to occur, has jeopardized not only our security but our sovereignty, Mike will work for strict border controls and accounting for all who seek to become part of our country. He will work to review and overhaul the H1-B and L-1 visa programs, especially where corporate abuse has resulted in thousands of American citizens, both native and naturalized, being displaced by lower-paid foreign workers. (See expanded discussion of this issue in "Mike On!") Because Mike's experiences abroad and at home have convinced him that America is a uniquely beautiful and constituted nation, he will not allow it to be divided or devolve into the sort of societies from which others have fled for the freedom and opportunity they have found here.