Why a San Diego Politician's Past Work on Labor Law Could Shape a Key Congressional Race
Marni von Wilpert, a San Diego city council member and former attorney for a federal labor agency, is running to replace longtime Republican U.S. Representative Darrell Issa in California's 48th congressional district. Von Wilpert, a Democrat, filed her candidacy paperwork with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) in September 2025. She won a hard-fought primary against a fellow Democrat and now faces Trump-endorsed San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond in November. The district was recently redrawn and slightly favors Democrats. Her campaign committee, "Marni von Wilpert for Congress" (FEC ID C00918391), has reported total fundraising of $2,174,872.25, with $1,684,545.71 coming from individual donors. The committee is based at 663 S Rancho Santa Fe Rd #689, San Marcos, CA 92078.
What makes von Wilpert's run stand out is how closely her career ties to one specific bill that has not yet become law. From 2014 to 2017, she worked as an attorney at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the federal agency that protects workers' rights to form unions and bargain with their employers. During that time, she worked with Democratic Congressman Bobby Scott and Senator Patty Murray to draft what became the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act. The idea for this bill started simply: a group of labor lawyers met at an ice-cream shop in Washington, D.C., over a decade ago to talk about updating the country's labor laws.
The PRO Act would update a labor law from 1935 that still governs how workers and employers interact. The update would strengthen protections for workers who want to form a union. It would let the NLRB fine companies that break labor rules, hold corporate executives personally responsible for violations, and penalize employers who punish workers for trying to join a union. In plain terms, the current law is like a referee who can only tell a team to replay a down. The PRO Act would let the referee hand out real penalties.
The PRO Act has been introduced in Congress every year since 2019. It passed the House of Representatives in 2021 but has been stuck in the Senate, where passing a bill is harder. A Senate version, named after labor leader Richard L. Trumka, was introduced in the 118th Congress. In the current 119th Congress (2025–2026), the bill has been reintroduced as H.R.20. The gap between the House passing the bill and the Senate not acting on it has made the PRO Act a cause célèbre for labor unions and a target for business groups. Von Wilpert's direct role in writing the legislation gives her candidacy a real connection to one of the Democratic Party's most important and debated labor policy goals.
Her political record in San Diego goes back before this congressional run. Von Wilpert won a city council seat in one of the most conservative areas of San Diego, representing the Fifth City Council District, which includes neighborhoods like Black Mountain Ranch and Carmel Mountain Ranch. On the council, she introduced a ban on "ghost guns" — firearms assembled from parts that have no serial numbers and cannot be traced — after San Diego police found 97 ghost guns in 2019 and 164 in 2020. She also introduced the SAAFE Act to reduce teen smoking, which the city council approved.
Before entering politics, von Wilpert started her legal career as a fellow at the Mississippi Center for Justice and as a clerk for a federal judge. That work in civil rights law and the federal court system came before her time at the NLRB and, eventually, her work on the PRO Act.
The November matchup sharpens the policy differences between the two candidates. As a county supervisor, Jim Desmond opposed several pro-labor policies: raising the minimum wage for contracted county workers, approving a contract for county janitorial workers who had reported abuse, and creating a county office to enforce labor standards. Desmond carries a Trump endorsement into a district that now slightly favors Democrats. That slim margin may test whether von Wilpert's background in labor policy and her city council record can win over enough voters from outside her own party, as she did when she first won her council seat.
The broader context here is that von Wilpert's candidacy comes at a moment when the PRO Act's path through Congress is uncertain but its importance within Democratic politics has, if anything, grown. A candidate who helped write the bill is now running in a competitive district. That creates a direct test of whether the labor law reform agenda that started in an ice-cream-shop meeting more than ten years ago can motivate voters in a redrawn Southern California district. The result in November will not decide the PRO Act's future in Congress, but it will provide a real signal on whether the coalition behind it can win a House seat that the redraw did not make safe.
