page_title: Duke Cunningham
section_title: Political career
hierarchical_section_title: Duke Cunningham / Political career
caption_attribution_description: English: Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham at TOPGUN, 1992.
context_page_description: Randall Harold "Duke" Cunningham is a former American politician and retired fighter pilot. A Republican, he served as member of the U.S. House of Representatives from California's 50th District from 1991 to 2005, and subsequently served 8 years in prison for accepting at least $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors. Cunningham resigned from Congress in 2005 after having pleaded guilty to bribery, fraud, and tax evasion in a widely publicized trial.
  Prior to his political career, Cunningham was an officer and pilot in the U.S. Navy for 20 years.
  Following the Vietnam war, Cunningham became an instructor at the U.S. Navy's Fighter Weapons School, better known as TOPGUN, and commanding officer of Fighter Squadron 126, a shore-based adversary squadron at NAS Miramar, California.
  Cunningham resigned from the House on November 28, 2005, after pleading guilty to accepting at least $2.4 million in bribes and under-reporting his taxable income for 2004. He pleaded guilty to federal charges of tax evasion, and conspiracy to commit bribery, mail fraud, and wire fraud. He was sentenced to eight years and four months in prison and was ordered to pay $1.8 million in restitution.
context_section_description: Cunningham's visibility as a CNN commentator led several Republican leaders to approach him about running in what was then the 44th District, one of four that divided San Diego. The district had been held for eight years by Democrat Jim Bates, and was considered the most Democratic district in the San Diego area. However, Bates was bogged down in a scandal involving charges of sexual harassment. Cunningham won the Republican nomination in 1990 and hammered Bates about the scandal, promising to be "a congressman we can be proud of." He won by just one percentage point, giving Republicans full representation of the San Diego area for only the second time since the city was split into two districts after the 1960 census.
  Cunningham's status as a Vietnam War hero made him a sought-after source, by colleagues and the media, in the debate on whether to use military force against Iraq in the lead up to the first Gulf War. Guy Vander Jagt of Michigan, longtime chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said that Cunningham had considerable "drawing power" and was treated as a celebrity by his fellow Republicans.
  After the 1990 census, redistricting renumbered the 44th District as the 51st and created the 50th District, splitting off a significant portion of San Diego County. At the same time, the 51st added several areas of heavily Republican North San Diego County. The new district included the home of Bill Lowery, a fellow Republican who had represented most of the other side of San Diego for the past 12 years. They faced one another in the Republican primary. Despite Lowery's seniority, his involvement in the House banking scandal hurt him. As polls showed Cunningham with a substantial lead, Lowery dropped out of the primary race, effectively handing Cunningham the nomination. Cunningham breezed to victory in November.
  Even though the district (renumbered as the 50th after the 2000 census) was not nearly as conservative as the other two Republican-held districts in the San Diego area, Cunningham was reelected six times with no less than 55 percent of the vote.
  Cunningham was a member of the Appropriations and Intelligence committees, and chaired the House Intelligence Subcommittee on Human Intelligence Analysis and Counterintelligence during the 109th Congress. He was considered a leading Republican expert on national security issues. He was also a champion of education, using his position on the Appropriations Education Subcommittee to steer federal dollars to schools in San Diego. After surgery for prostate cancer in 1998, he became a champion of early testing for the disease.
  Cunningham was known for making controversial comments. For example:
  Making a comment about gay Congressman Barney Frank, where he called the rectal examination for prostate cancer "just not natural, unless maybe you're Barney Frank".
  Displaying his middle finger to a constituent and "for emphasis, [shouting] the two-word meaning of his one-finger salute" during an argument over military spending.
  Suggesting that the Democratic House leadership should be "lined up and shot" – a call he'd previously made about Vietnam War protesters.
  Referring to gay soldiers as "homos" on the floor of the House of Representatives when he said backers of an environmental amendment were "the same people that would ... put homos in the military." Congresswoman Pat Schroeder asked if he would yield the floor, but Cunningham told her, "No, I will not." When then-Congressman Bernie Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, objected, Cunningham responded by telling Sanders "Sit down, you socialist." Bernie Sanders asked Cunningham to confirm if he was "referring to the many thousands and thousands of gay people who have put their lives on the line in countless wars defending this country? Was that the groups of people that the gentleman was referring to?"
  He later apologized for his comments. After Cunningham yielded, Schroeder asked if she had "to call the gentleman a gentleman if he's not one."
  While Cunningham said that "I cut my own rudder" on iss
caption: Congressman Cunningham at TOPGUN, 1991.
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