Charlie Rodríguez
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Charlie Rodríguez is a New York City-born Puerto Rican politician affiliated with the New Progressive Party (NPP). He served as the eleventh President of the Senate of Puerto Rico from 1997 until 2000.
Since he was thirteen years old, Charlie Rodríguez has been active in the pro-statehood movement of Puerto Rico, and the NPP. At such young age he held positions in the youth movement, by the age of fourteen he was the youth leader of his precinct in Carolina, Puerto Rico, and by age sixteen he was the Municipal President of the Youth Organization of the New Progressive Party in his hometown of Carolina.
In 1979 he was elected to the Presidency of the Youth State Organization of the New Progressive Party. From such position Charlie Rodríguez organized the campaign among young voters to re-elect Governor Carlos Romero Barceló. Rodríguez participated in debates and forums in universities campuses, radio and television, promoting the vision of Statehood, the NPP platform and the reasons to reelect Governor Romero Barceló. The 1980 elections were one of the closest in Puerto Rico history, making the youth vote even more important.
While holding positions of leadership, Rodríguez graduated with honors from the Public High School of Carolina. He was accepted at the Social Science Department of the University of Puerto Rico, later he transferred to Cornell University in New York, where he graduated with a Bachelor in Political Science and History in 1976. He took his first year of Law School in Cornell University, before he transferred back to the University of Puerto Rico, and obtained his Juris Doctor in 1983 and passed the bar exam.
In 1980 Rodriguez was elected State Representative At-Large. His dedication to his legislative duties led to his reelection in 1984, even though his party lost the election. In 1985 he assumed the leadership of the party in the municipality of Carolina and in 1988 ran as his party's candidate for mayor, losing to the PDP's José Aponte, but obtained the higherst number of votes ever achieved by a New Progressive Party candidate in Carolina.
After four years in private legal practice, he returned to the legislature in the elections of 1992 as a State Senator At-Large and was unanimously elected by his colleagues as Senate Majority Leader, in charge of pushing the New Progressive Party and Governor Pedro Rosselló's legislative agenda. Re-elected State Senator At-Large in 1996, in 1997 he was elected the eleventh President of the Senate of Puerto Rico.
As Senate President, Charlie Rodríguez, he continued pursuing the NPP's legislative agenda during Rosselló's second and last term as Governor.
Rodriguez sought the New Progressive Party nomination for Mayor of San Juan in the 1999 primary bujt lost to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Jorge Santini, who went on to become San Juan's first NPP mayor since 1988.
After polling less than 7% of the vote in the 2003 NPP primary for Resident Commissioner, in 2004 Rodríguez was selected by Rosselló, who was running for a third term as Governor, to head the NPP's Platform Committee.
In 2007, Rodriguez announced he would once again seek the nomination for Resident Commissioner that had eluded him in 2003. He ran against former Sen. Miriam Ramírez, who polled 6% of the vote, and former Attorney General Pedro Pierluisi, who was endorsed by current Resident Commissioner Luis Fortuño, and who won the race with 60% of the vote, while Rodríguez polled 33% of the vote.
On several occasions, Rodríguez has represented, on a pro bono basis, Sen. Rosselló, Romero Barceló and the party in several court procedures.
Charlie Rodríguez married the former Kathy Erazo. They have three daughters: Nicole, Valerie, who has followed her father's footsteps as an attorney, and Christie, a college student.
