Clinton Dotson McKinnon, a newspaper publisher who served in Congress half a century ago when he was the last representative for all of San Diego County, has died. He was 95.
McKinnon, who served from 1948 to 1952 before redistricting gave the county two seats in Congress, died Saturday in La Jolla of causes associated with age.
The two-term Democratic congressman ingratiated himself to constituents by fighting for water rights, not only in San Diego but throughout the Southwest, and helping to bring Colorado River water to the county.
He also intervened to help solve a dispute between the federal government and farmers in the Fallbrook area over water from the Santa Margarita River. Farmers claimed federal authorities were ruining them by diverting water needed for irrigation to military facilities at Camp Pendleton. McKinnon helped speed construction of a dam to ease the standoff.
In the early 1950s, he also moved to increase tariffs on imported canned tuna from Japan and South America in a futile attempt to preserve the tuna cannery business in Southern California.
In 1952, McKinnon attempted to move up to the U.S. Senate by challenging incumbent Republican Sen. William Knowland. But the Democrat was not well-known statewide and got trounced in the landslide for Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower. "That was not a good year," McKinnon quipped years later, "to be a Democrat."
He went back to his regular profession--running small newspapers. Not that he had left all thoughts of it behind during his four years in Washington. He once told the National Production Authority, an economic body, it ought to get "a good newspaper rewrite man" to interpret its overly complex regulations of small businesses.
"The businessman is having a difficult time making heads or tails of those orders," McKinnon told the group. He said the regulations should at least be accompanied by a summary written "by a man who writes what people can read and understand."
Born in Dallas, McKinnon was raised by his mother, a nurse, after his father died when he was 12. He grew up to own and run several newspapers in Texas and California.
After publishing community newspapers in North Hollywood, he settled in San Diego and on March 17, 1944, became the only person to start a daily newspaper during World War II. That was the San Diego Journal, which was later absorbed by the San Diego Union-Tribune.
