CURTIS MORRISON, DEMOCRAT RUNNING AGAINST ISSA, SPEAKS OUT ON KEY ISSUES AND THREATS TO OUR DEMOCRACY

By Miriam Raftery

May 17, 2025 (San Diego) – Curtis Morrison is an immigration attorney  and Democrat running for the 48^th Congressional district against Congressman Darrell Issa, a Republican.  He’s previously worked as a realtor and substitute teacher.

Last month he sat down for an in-depth interview with East County Magazine, originally aired on our radio show on KNSJ radio. View video, hear audio, or scroll down to read highlights.

2026 will be a pivotal election year, since Republicans hold a very slim majority in the House and Senate; if Democrats regain control of one or both house, they will have the power to reign in many of the Trump administration’s controversial actions.

Asked why he’s running, Morrison said he’s unhappy that Issa “has become a cheerleader for everything Trump does.” He notes that Issa ran for Congress to be a watchdog providing oversight, but has recently done just the opposite.

Morrison, as a candidate, has filed as an intervenor in a lawsuit that Issa filed against the State of California. Issa, backed by the conservative Judicial Watch group, wants to prohibit California and other states from counting mail-in ballots received after Election Day.

Morrison says Judicial Watch has “an agenda of voter suppression, trying to limit the number of votes counted.” A similar suit in Mississippi has resulted in ballots not counted if received after election day.  While Issa claims counting all votes would make him more likely to lose.  But Morrison has an alternative theory: that if he loses, it’s because voters don’t support his policies “and that’s a self-inflicted wound.”

He voices serious concerns over threats to our democracy, including actions by Issa to “give Trump cover for eroding these rights.” For example, Issa has authored the “No Rogue Rulings Act,”  a House bill to stop federal judges from being able to issue nationwide injunctions to halt unconstitutional actions.

“I have a unique perspective, because I’ve won injunctive relief against the Trump administration and against the Biden administration,” says Morrison. “We were on the right side of the issues, and the idea that a federal judge shouldn’t be able to right the wrongs done by the government  just because the plaintiff couldn’t afford to go to court, or show up in that venue, is crazy.” He notes that relying only on higher courts to issue nationwide injunctions would take years, since courts are backlogged, “and there would be no redress at all.”

ECM asked Morrison how his views differ from Issa’s on immigration and due process issues, at a time when the Trump administration has been mass deporting immigrants,  sending some overseas without due process including to a prison in El Salvador infamous for human rights abuses, also now targeting some green card holders as well as undocumented immigrants.

Morrison said he has studied the Holocaust and knows that totalitarianism and authoritarianism don’t happen overnight.  “The way it happens is a gradual process, where they take away one right, they get away with that, and then they take away another right,” he says. “I do see serious threats to the democracy right now.”

He finds it overwhelming that “a president even asserted the right to disappear people without due process.” 

Though the Supreme Court has ruled that Trump cannot use the Alien Enemies Act to deport people in the future, the justices did not address the fates of those already deported to the El Salvador prison, including some who had no criminal records. It also remains to be seen whether the Trump administration will comply with that ruling.

“When Democrats get back control (of Congress),  we really have to right these wrongs,” says Morrison.  “W can do it. We’re the country that put man on the moon. We can accomplish great things; we cannot be bullied by this little country saying that we can’t get those people back.”

ECM asked Morrison his views on the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) implementing mass firings, deleting information including on government website, eliminating anything to do with diversity, equity and inclusion, and even eliminating entire agencies such as USAID that was created by Congress, all in the name of ostensibly saving money.

“The whole thing is unlawful,” says Morrison, who has started two law firms of his own. He says the executive branch does not have the right to eliminate agencies or jobs created by Congress; only Congress has that right. Morever, he notes, federal agencies already had oversight through inspector generals, though the Trump administration has fired them, too. 

Morrison acknowledges that there is some government waste, such as an embassy where too many consular officers kept wrecking vehicles. But he says, “There are trained audtiors, many of whom are attorneys” whose jobs were to track down waste, fraud and abuse. They’re not a bunch of teenagers in a van that just show up with Red Bull,” he added, referring to Elon Musk’s youthful team of DOGE workers with no experience in the agencies they gutted, he adds.

Protecting Social Security and healthcare, including women’s health, are important to Morrison. He laments that instead of talking about expanding the Affordable Care Act or moving to a single-payer or Medicare for All system, the conversation under Trump has now turned to trying to “stop them from cutting off Medicare and Social Security.”

He describes a consular office that he’s dealt with as an immigration attorney, where staffers stopped answering phones and sent only automated messages in response to emails.  He submitted a Freedom of  Information Act requests and learned of an intentional strategy to shut down service and blame it on COVID, but the situation continues.

“This is what’s going to happen to Social Security,” he predicts of the Trump administration’s actions.  “You’re not going to be able to talk to a human, because there won’t be a human there. 

Trump ran on a platform of reducing inflation, but the tariffs he imposed have fueled inflation and higher prices.

Morrison faults Issa for not standing up to Trump on tariffs. “I believe tariffs are bad for the economy,” he said. In Mexico for a conference during our Zoom interview, he observed that in Mexico, 18 eggs cost just $3.  He suspects the repeated tariff fluctuations is “a grift, a scam to transfer wealth from everyday people to billionaires” who are buying low and selling high as tariffs fluctuate, perhaps with insider information.

He believes Trump’s order authorizing the Internal Revenue Service to share information with immigration authorities to round up tax paying people for deportation is a bad idea.  “Rounding up taxpayers!  It makes me angry...They’re going to undermine the economy,” he said, also voicing concerns over food production if agricultural

President Trump has pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Accord and cancelled green energy initiatives of the Biden administration.

“Climate change ius an issues that’s very important to me,” says Morrison. “I believe that future generations have a right to a stable climate and that we have a duty and an obligation...not to undermine their rights by filling the atmosphere with carbon.”

He recalled working for a nonprofit after law school in Oregon representing youth plaintiffs against the US Govt for “what US govt has done to actually cause climate change” such as licensing more fossil fuel extraction, including authorizing drilling off California’s coast.  Morrison says he wrote a law review article on the need for Congress to establish a fracking waste regulatory commission, since cancer-causing wastes from offshore drilling are pumped back into the same ocean waters that beach-goers swim in.  “Big oil companies are allowed to police themselves,” he says, a practice he wants to see stopped.

The Trump administration has taken aim at diversity, equity, and inclusion, including eliminating federal recognitions and protections for women, minorities, and the LGBTQ community. Asked for comments, Morrison says eliminating DEI protections seems like a “desperate attempt” by “white men” to hang onto privileges.

“I was raised by a single mom; she experienced workplace discrimination,” he recalls. “I’m gay, so of course I’ve experience discrimination as well.” He adds that he’s seen racial discrimination in real estate and in immigration policies.  “We are in a world where we have work to do if we want to eliminate racism and classicism and sexism.,” he concludes. “Pretending like it doesn’t exist is not viable.”

Asked his priorities in foreign policy, Morrison said he wants to restore diplomacy that was largely destroyed during the first Trump administration. He believes not enough was done during the Biden administration to restore what was taken away. “We are no longer an actor on the international stage that uses diplomacy to solve problems. We’re back to brute force,” says Morrison, who objects to Trump’s statements seeking to take control of Panama and Greenland against the wishes of their govenrments and residents.  “That fuels resentment abroad,” he says.

On the Israel-Gaza conflict, he believes the Israeli response to the Hamas massacre was “so disproportional that it’s going to do Israel more harm in the long run” as Gaza children grow up and “want revenge.” He believes the Biden administration “could have held Netanyahu and Israel to higher standards. I don’t think it was necessary to level Gaza and I do believe it was a genocide,” though he calls the Hamas slaughter of Israeli citizens “a horrible tragedy.”

On the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Trump administration has sided with Russia, directly the opposite stance of the Biden administration, European and free world leaders. Asked his views, Morrison replies firmly, “I believe (Russian President) Putin and Russia are the aggressor; if you let him have Ukraine, he’s not going to stop there.  He wants to put the old USSR back together and he’s going to use his last breath to do it. And we should not give an inch.”

He supports the U.S. being part of NATO, which Trump does not.  “ What’s interesting is that Darrell Issa used to care a lot about foreign policy and peace in the Middle East,” Morrison reflects. “But as you see Trump completely making a mess of it, he’s silent.”

San Diego has many active duty military members, military families and veterans.  ECM asked Morrison his thoughts on Trump and DOGE slashing funding and personnel for programs that support military families and the Veterans Administraiton.

He called this a “huge issue” and noted that at an empty townhall held by Issa opponents in Escondido recently after Issa refused to hold a live townhall for seven years, many of the audience questions focused on these issues.  “A lot of people in our district have served abroad and have PTSD,” he says. “They need services,” he said, objecting strongly to those services being taken away.  He recalled older family members who served in the military and died in V.A. hospitals, where he visited them. “I’ve always thought it was a noble thing about our country that we would take care of our veterans for the long haul. We shouldn’t give in on that,” he maintains. “I’ve always thought it was a noble thing about our country that we would take care of our veterans for long haul...we shouldn’t give in on that.

Asked what else he wants voters to know, Morrison says his experience as an immigration lawyer has been eye-opening. ”I know why people want to come to this country, what they think the American dream is,” he said. “I sometimes am in the awkward position of explaining (to immigrants) that we are not quite there yet.  We have a lot of work to do,”he says, for both new immigrants and those who have been here for many years.  “we have a lot of workto do to make this the kind of country that we need it to be. It’s not ‘make America great again’, it’s ‘keep on the path of getting to be great.’

He cites the late Robert F.Kennedy and says, “We have to take care of the poor.  We have a lot of homeless in San Diego County and we need to take care of them, too.”

You can learn more about Curtis Morrison’s candidacy for the 48^th Congressional district, support his candidacy or volunteer on his campaign by visiting his website at https://curtisforcongress.com/  or his social media feed on X: (10) Curtis Morrison for Congress (@curtisforCA48) / X .