Frank Riggs, former North Coast congressman, dies at 73

Former three-term North Coast congressman Frank Riggs died Dec. 20 in Arizona, his home since 2001. He was 73.

A Republican, Riggs served as a Windsor schools trustee and a Sonoma County Sheriff’s deputy before he unseated four-term Democratic Rep. Doug Bosco in 1990. Following six on-again, off-again years in the House of Representatives and a brief run for one of California’s two seats in the U.S. Senate, Riggs moved to more GOP-friendly Arizona, where he sought but failed to be elected governor or state schools superintendent.

In overwhelmingly Democratic Sonoma County in the 1990s, Riggs became the last Republican elected to a partisan office. Though his politics would grow more conservative, he started out in Congress as a reformer determined to fulfill the wishes of his generally left-of-center constituency.

“In one of his first votes, he made the tough call against the Iraq war because he thought we were going to war for the wrong reason,” said one of his sons, Matt Riggs of Arizona.

Former campaign consultant, House staffer and Sebastopol resident Mitch Mulanix helped Riggs win the California 1st Congressional District seat and then served on his staff. Mulanix remembers President George H.W. Bush inviting Riggs to the White House to press for his support of a January 1991 Gulf War resolution. Riggs voted no. Said Mulanix, “He paid for that from the Republicans forever.”

As a member of the House’s Gang of Seven, Riggs and a half-dozen other freshmen in the 102nd Congress openly condemned their colleagues for internal scandals that included routinely bouncing checks in their House bank accounts, revelations that became a roaring scandal in the second year of his first term.

Riggs showed his political flexibility when he contributed to the preservation of the old-growth redwoods in Humboldt County’s Headwaters Forest. He also helped to continue the patchwork ban on offshore oil drilling and to prevent a water grab from the Trinity River, and he worked to seal the preservation of the historic railroad right of way through Mendocino and Sonoma counties.

“I think on many occasions he swallowed his own politics to represent his district,” Mulanix said.

Riggs served one term in the House, then in 1992 was defeated by Democrat Dan Hamburg of Mendocino County. Riggs took on Hamburg in 1994 and won back his seat, and in 1996 he defeated challenger Michela Alioto-Pier.

In 1994, Democrat Bill Clinton occupied the Oval Office but the Republican Revolution captured control of both houses of Congress for the first time since 1952. As an ally of House Speaker Newt Gingrich and a signee of his party’s Contract With America, Riggs became more reliably conservative and oftentimes contentious. He was proud of his high ratings from the National Rifle Association and National Right to Life, the anti-abortion group.

As his third term was ending in 1998, he saw that he would be challenged by a popular, Democratic state senator, Mike Thompson. Riggs announced he would not seek a fourth term in the House, but would challenge U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer. He later dropped out of that race.

In a farewell editorial, The Press Democrat wrote that Riggs “is one of those politicians who tends to personalize every disagreement, which is why he lands in so many scraps.” But the newspaper lauded his intelligence and dedication, writing, “Few are more dogged than Riggs in pursuit of the ideas and issues that motivate him.”

About three years after he left Congress, Riggs and his now former wife, Cathy Riggs, who’d once been a Santa Rosa police officer, relocated to Arizona. Frank Riggs announced in 2005 that he would run against Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano. He subsequently learned he was not eligible to run because he’d not been an Arizona resident long enough.

In 2014, Riggs entered the Republican primary for Arizona governor, then finished last in a field of six candidates.

In 2018, he defeated Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Diane Douglas in the Republican primary. But in the general election, he lost to political neophyte Kathy Hoffman in a stunning, surprise victory.

A disciplined runner and fitness fan who played several sports at St. Mary’s College in Moraga, Riggs found in 2020 that he had a heart-valve problem. This past September, a corrective procedure set off a chain of medical events that depleted his vigor.

The people closest to Riggs say he was a proud American and a family man who sought elected office not to feed his ego but to help people.

“The bottom line is, he was passionate about his service,” Cathy Riggs said. Divorced from Frank Riggs since 2021, she works as a justice of the peace in Maricopa County, Arizona.

Mulanix, who lived in Sebastopol when he met Riggs and now resides in San Diego, described the former congressman as “a regular guy who tried to make a difference.”

Riggs’ daughter, Sarah Forster of Scottsdale, said: “He was an incredibly strong man and such a fighter. His motto was ‘Pay it forward’.” She added, “He had the greatest laugh.”

Son Matt Riggs said his dad was “a man of high integrity and principles” who savored a good margarita, cheered the Arizona Diamondbacks but still had a soft spot for the Giants, and found great joy in his grandchildren.

Stepson Ryan Collingwood of San Diego County said Riggs treated him always as a son. “If I was going to do something,” Collingwood said, “he wanted me to be the best.”

Frank Duncan Riggs was born in Louisville in 1950. He was a high school senior when his parents moved with their five children to San Francisco.

A career-day encounter at San Rafael High School sparked Riggs’ interest in law enforcement. While studying at St. Mary’s he worked as a cadet-dispatcher at the San Rafael Police Department.

Expecting to be drafted into the Vietnam War, he enlisted in the Army and served as a military police officer in Germany. Following his honorable discharge he became a Santa Barbara police officer, after a while taking a leave to earn a criminal-justice degree from Golden Gate University.

Riggs came to Sonoma County to take a job with the Healdsburg Police Department. One day in Santa Rosa he met the former Cathy Ann Maillard, then the city’s only female police officer. They married in May 1980.

Frank Riggs transferred to the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office. After about three years as a deputy, he left law enforcement to go to work for Santa Rosa auto dealer, land investor and Republican stalwart Kirk Veale.

In 1983, Riggs launched his first campaign for office, winning election to the board of the Windsor Unified School District. That marked the start of a decadeslong involvement in education. Riggs would become an advocate and financer of charter schools and would serve on the House Education and Workforce Committee.

A few years into his work with Veale, Riggs left, and he and his wife opened a business that involved exercising an option to purchase land, obtaining initial development rights and then selling the property to a developer.

In 1990, Riggs became a long-shot candidate for Congress. That year, politicos from both the left and right of Democratic Rep. Bosco of Santa Rosa sensed that a degree of voter dissatisfaction with him made him vulnerable.

In the end, west county Peace and Freedom Party candidate Darlene Comingore drew away just enough votes from Bosco to give Riggs the narrowest of victories.

With that, the former law-enforcement officer was a congressman.

In addition to his former wife and his three children, Riggs is survived by his sisters, Winifred Riggs of Petaluma and Carrie Belle Riggs of Santa Rosa; his brother, Robert Riggs of San Diego; and seven grandchildren.