Robert Francis "Beto" O'Rourke, born September 26, 1972, is an American entrepreneur, civic leader, and former member of the Paso Del Norte Group. O'Rourke was the District 8 representative of El Paso, Texas, from June 2005 to June 2011. He is currently running for the Democratic nomination for Congress, against incumbent Silvestre Reyes.[1]
O'Rourke is a fourth-generation El Paso native.[2] He is the son of former El Paso County Judge Pat O'Rourke and Melissa O'Rourke. Pat O'Rourke, was killed in a bicycling accident on July 6, 2001. His grandparents were Frank and Mildred O'Rourke and Robert and Charlotte Williams.
O'Rourke attended Mesita Elementary and El Paso High School, and in 1995, he graduated with a bachelor's degree in English literature from Columbia University in New York City.
O'Rourke spent three years working at Internet start-ups in New York City before his return to El Paso in 1998. In 1999, O'Rourke formed his own company with the help of a few friends in downtown El Paso, now called Stanton Street Technology Group, which does IT consulting and Web design for small to medium-size businesses. Since its creation, Stanton Street Technology Group has developed into a leading provider of web-based services in El Paso and the surrounding region.
Amy Hoover Sanders married Beto O'Rourke on September 24, 2005 in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She is the daughter of William and Louann Sanders of El Paso, and the granddaughter of Richard and Louann Feuille and David and Marion Sanders. She graduated from Williams College in Massachusetts, with a major in psychology. After graduating, she spent a year teaching in Guatemala and moved to El Paso in August 2004.
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In mid-2005, O'Rourke won a seat on the El Paso city council against two-term city councilman Anthony Cobos. O'Rourke is one of the youngest representatives to have ever served the City of El Paso. Although City Council is non-partisan, O'Rourke is involved in the Democratic Party.[3]
O'Rourke's short political career has been marked by various initiatives. Among the most publicized initiatives was an August 2005 resolution drafted by council members Steve Ortega and Beto O'Rourke, calling on city officials to discourage the anti-illegal immigrant Minutemen from patrolling the local stretch of the Texas-Mexico border and "reject civilian attempts to enforce immigration law." Essentially, making the Minutemen officially unwelcome in El Paso. The resolution opted for "cooperation and goodwill" over further militarization of the border. Minutemen spokesman Shannon McGauley said his group planned to go ahead with October operations in El Paso, despite the resolution. "It doesn't mean anything, to me or any American who wants secure borders." McGauley said. "It's just an opinion." The resolution was supported by seven of the eight city representatives. Articles on the subject arose in the Associated Press, Yahoo! News, Forbes, as well as many Spanish language publications.
In 2006 there was a failed attempt to recall O'Rourke, over the El Paso Downtown Redevelopment plan. Because of O'Rourke's involvement in and support of the controversial Downtown Revitalization Plan, South Side activist Carmen Felix initiated a recall petition drive against him on May 3, 2006. Those calling for the recall election raised question as to whether O'Rourke's actions in promoting the plan are in the best interest of the community he represents. Despite the threat of being recalled O'Rourke continued to strongly advocate the use of eminent domain in conjunction with the plan to redevelop downtown El Paso. O'Rourke's emphasis on the matter seemed to change subtly as the recall drive deadline neared.
At the El Paso City Council meeting of June 13, 2005, East-Central El Paso city Rep. José Alexandro Lozano proposed a ban on the use of eminent domain for private redevelopment downtown. "If the property owners are not satisfied, we are not going to move forward, period", Lozano said to cheers from the audience. "We have to kill this plan unless the owners give us permission to continue." Boos greeted Mayor John Cook when he said, "If you're finished with your soapbox, I would entertain a motion to postpone this until the first meeting in July." A vote was quickly called by O'Rourke without hearing from people who had signed up to speak. The vote ended in a 4-3 decision against the proposed ban.
At the El Paso city council meeting held on July 9, 2006, O'Rourke, still under threat of recall showed a distinct change in tone toward the El Paso Downtown Revitalization Plan. O'Rourke responded to a question posed by fellow city councilman Lozano with respect to whether residents displaced by new construction "could come back to the area." O'Rourke responded in assurance that the city would make "every effort" to ensure displaced residents were allowed to remain in their same neighborhoods. O'Rourke also fronted amendments adopting a portion of an alternate Downtown Plan offered by Lozano, to encourage utilities, large businesses and public sector agencies to move Downtown; as well as a value statement to "explore arena options" -- whether an arena is needed, and where to put it.
On July 25, 2006, The El Paso Times as well as local news stations reported that Felix et al. had failed to file the recall petition with the city attorney's office by the legal deadline. Felix rebutted that the petition would be ready to hand in on Monday July 27. Critics speculated Felix failed to acquire all 978 signatures of registered voters in O'Rourke's district to call the election. Opponents of O'Rourke deemed much of the petition's failure was largely due to the reluctance among lower-income people to challenge the powers that be.
"Now that they actually decided not to follow through on their commitment to turn the petitions in, I feel it's really over," O'Rourke said. "To me, it was heartening that after ... all their claims of popular opposition to me and this plan, that they were unable on Friday or again on Monday to turn in a petition that validated any of their claims."
On September 5, 2006, lawyers for the Land Grab Opponents of El Paso filed an ethics complaint with the City of El Paso alleging that South-West Rep. Beto O'Rourke “violated his fiduciary duty to the citizens of El Paso.”[4] According to the complaint, O'Rourke stands to benefit from his relationship with the Paso del Norte Group because his firm does business with the group. It states that “O'Rourke is impermissibly entangled in the Paso del Norte Group's Downtown Revitalization Plan, through both family and business ties.”[5] The complaint alleges that O'Rourke's company, Stanton Street Technology Group, provides Internet and Information Technology services to the Paso del Norte Group. Despite these ties, O'Rourke voted to extend the group's contract with the city last year and to accept the group's redevelopment proposal in March, according to the complaint. The El Paso municipal code demands that council members and city officials avoid actual or apparent conflicts of interest. The city's Ethics Review Commission summarily dismissed the first ethics complaint on October 12, 2006. The second complaint was dismissed on October 18, 2006. O'rourke issued the following statement: "These actions are not isolated events... They are part of a much larger process of character assassination and political intimidation that has involved recall petitions, public smear campaigns and not one but two formal ethics complaints."[6] The Land Grab Opponents' lawyer Blaugrund said his intent in filing the ethics complaints was to make O'Rourke recuse himself from debating and voting on the Downtown plan because his father-in-law, William "Bill" Sanders, is a leader in the Paso del Norte Group[7] that advanced the plan. Blaugrund also cited the business relationship between Paso del Norte Group and O'Rourke's Stanton Street Technologies. In the second ethics complaint, Blaugrund pointed to evidence he said suggests that the chief financial officer of Sanders' company, The Verde Group, prepared O'Rourke's income tax return this year. O'Rourke abstained at Tuesday's City Council meeting from voting on the establishment of a Downtown Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone, which is to be the city's mechanism for investing in the redevelopment plan, and he left council chambers during the discussion. O'Rourke said he abstained because his wife's employer, Clinica Familiar de Salud La Fe, owns property in the reinvestment zone and could benefit from new development. That advice came from the city attorney's office. Blaugrund said O'Rourke's decision "to finally recuse himself from voting on issues relating to Downtown redevelopment is a victory for advocates of open and transparent government."[6] Mayor John Cook voted for O'Rourkes in his absence. Blaugrund stated that, "His ridiculous assertions show that he is perfectly capable of destroying his political career all by himself."
O'Rourke ran for re-election in 2007 and was re-elected on May 12, 2007. Voter turnout in District 8 was 10.1 percent, and he took 70 percent of the 3,350 votes cast, winning all but one of the 19 precincts in the district, including precinct 35, commonly referred to as "Segundo Barrio" or the Second Ward.[8]
During the 2007 campaign a prominently placed billboard featuring his campaign slogan "One Agenda. El Paso." was vandalized shortly after being erected. The vandal(s) used black spray paint to write the word "OWN" between the words "agenda." and "El".
In January 2009, O'Rourke sponsored a resolution asking the federal government to rethink the war on drugs and initiate an "open and honest debate" about ending the prohibition of illegal drugs. The resolution, which was unanimously supported by his colleagues on the El Paso City Council and later vetoed by the Mayor, spurred a larger national discussion on the topic. He told reporters that the reason he decided to speak up about what he called the failed war on drugs was the thousands of people who have been killed in the drug war in the adjoining city of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.
"I hope it has all had its intended affect of starting the national discussion of the wisdom of the war on drugs … and probably more importantly, helping to bring about a better solution than the status quo, which has led to the terror and tragedy in Juarez," he said at the time.[9]
His efforts to encourage a national conversation have been picked up in articles and broadcasts in the New York Times, Time, the BBC, CNN, NPR and many other media outlets.
O'Rourke's current term will end in 2011.
O'Rourke considered running against Congressman Silvestre Reyes in the Democratic primary in 2010, but decided not to.[3] He will, however, run against Reyes in 2012.[10]
O'Rourke was voted "Best Elected Official" in the July 12–18, 2006 edition (Vol. 7. No.41) of "What's Up", an English language entertainment weekly circulated throughout El Paso. Each year the reader publishes a special issue titled "Best of El Paso." This issue consists of a compilation of various businesses, people, and events deemed "best of" by readers of the periodical who participate in a vote. Runners-up included Mayor John Cook in second place, and Congressman Silvestre Reyes in third.
O'Rourke is of Irish descent.
In the early 1990s, Beto O'Rourke was a singer and guitarist in the band Foss. Foss included Cedric Bixler-Zavala (vocalist for At the Drive-In and The Mars Volta) on vocals and drums, Arlo Klahr (vocalist for Fragile Gang) on vocals and guitar, and Mike Stevens on vocals and guitar. They released a self-titled demo and a 7" record entitled The El Paso Pussycats on Western Breed Records in 1993. They released a subsequent album entitled "Fewel St." in 1994, also on Western Breed Records. Foss toured the U.S. and Canada in the summer of 1993 and again, along with Bixler's concurrent band, Los Dregtones, in the summer of 1994.
| “ | We need more recreational capacity. We need to create new ways to get the kids out of the house to enjoy the outdoors. Right now the city streets are not safe for cyclists. | ” |
| “ | If we open up more bike lanes, you can improve the city's overall health. | ” |
| “ | We are disproportionately affected by any U.S. policy that deals with Mexico, whether it’s immigration or, in this case, drug policy. We should be the ones framing this and informing the policymakers at the national level—not Lou Dobbs or people in D.C. or other parts of the country. Because the reality is that Mexico scares them, the border scares them, and military interdiction seems to make perfect sense to them. | ” |