Henry Roberto Cuellar | |
---|---|
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Texas's 28th district |
|
Incumbent | |
Assumed office January 3, 2005 |
|
Preceded by | Ciro Rodriguez |
102nd Texas Secretary of State | |
In office January 1, 2001 – January 7, 2002 |
|
Preceded by | Elton Bomer |
Succeeded by | Gwyn Shea |
Personal details | |
Born | September 19, 1955 Laredo, Texas |
Political party | Democratic |
Spouse(s) | Imelda Cuellar |
Children | Christina Alexandra Cuellar Catherine Ann Cuellar |
Residence | Laredo, Texas |
Alma mater | Laredo Junior College, Georgetown University, Texas A&M International University, University of Texas at Austin |
Occupation | Attorney, Customs broker |
Religion | Roman Catholic |
Henry Roberto Cuellar (born September 19, 1955) is the U.S Representative for Texas's 28th congressional district, serving since 2005. He is a member of the Democratic Party. The district extends from the Rio Grande to the suburbs of San Antonio, including Guadalupe County and nearby Wilson County.
Outside of politics, he has served as a professor at the Texas A&M International University (TAMIU) in Laredo, TX.
Contents[hide] |
Cuellar was born in Laredo, the seat of Webb County in southern Texas, where he has resided most of his life. Cuellar's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Martin S. Cuellar, Sr., were migrant workers who never completed schooling beyond the fifth grade. He is the oldest of eight children. His brother, Martin Cuellar, Jr., is the sheriff of Webb County, having been elected in 2008 over the incumbent fellow Democrat Rick Flores. A sister, Rosie Cuellar-Castillo, is the incoming Laredo municipal judge, having won a nonpartisan runoff election held on December 11, 2010.[1]
Cuellar graduated in 1973 from J. W. Nixon High School, a classmate of future Webb County District Attorney Joe Rubio, Jr. Cuellar then procured an associate's degree from Laredo Community College (then known as Laredo Junior College), where he would later for a time instruct government courses on an adjunct basis. He then attended the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and graduated cum laude with a bachelor's degree in foreign service. He also holds a master's degree in International Trade from Texas A&M International University in Laredo and a Juris Doctor and a Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin. With a total of five degrees, Cuellar is the most degreed member of Congress serving in the House.
Cuellar opened his own law firm in 1981 and became a licensed customs broker in 1983. He worked at his alma mater, TAMIU, as an Adjunct Professor for International Commercial Law from 1984 to 1986.
Prior to being elected to the United States House of Representatives, Cuellar was a member of the Texas House of Representatives from 1987 to 2001, having represented the major portion of Laredo. During his 14 years as Laredo’s state representative, he served in leadership positions in the House Appropriations, Higher Education, and Calendar committees. His most notable accomplishments in the Texas State Legislature included coauthoring the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), which ensured health care for thousands of previously uninsured children, and cosponsoring the largest tax cut in Texas history, which included a three-day tax holiday for consumers and small businesses. He also served on several national legislative committees dealing with state budgets, the U.S./Mexico border, and international trade.
In 2001, Cuellar was appointed as Secretary of State of Texas by Republican Governor Rick Perry. As Secretary of State for nearly ten months, he supported new voter initiatives to register, educate, and protect voters’ rights, as well as efforts to expand the Border/Mexico Affairs office to help the colonias. He also implemented new technology to make state agencies more customer-friendly and results-oriented.
In the 2002 election, Cuellar was the Democratic Party nominee for the House of Representatives in Texas's 23rd congressional district. He lost to five-term incumbent Republican Henry Bonilla by two percentage points in the closest race Bonilla had faced to that date. Bonilla was unseated in 2006 in the revised 23rd District.
Cuellar spent much of the early part of 2003 preparing for a rematch against Bonilla. However, the 2003 Texas redistricting shifted most of Laredo, which had been the heart of the 23rd since its creation in 1966, into the 28th district, represented by Democrat Ciro Rodriguez. Cuellar challenged Rodriguez for the nomination and won it by 58 votes. [2] Cuellar's victory was one of only two primary upsets of incumbents, from either party, in the entire country.
The 28th district leans far more Democratic than the 23rd, and Cuellar's victory in the general election was a foregone conclusion. In November, he defeated Republican Jim Hopson of Seguin by a 20-point margin, becoming the first Laredoan in over 20 years elected to represent the 28th District of Texas. Cuellar's election to the House in 2004 was a standout for Democrats in a year in which Republicans otherwise gained seats in Texas' delegation in the U.S. House of Representatives.
On March 7, 2006, Cuellar again defeated Rodriguez in the Democratic primary with 52 percent of the vote in a three-way race. No Republican even attempted to file, ostensibly assuring him of reelection in November.
On June 29, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that the Texas Legislature violated the rights of Latino voters when it shifted most of Laredo out of the 23rd and replaced it with several heavily Republican San Antonio suburbs.[3] As a result, nearly every congressional district from El Paso to San Antonio had to be redrawn, and the primary results for these districts were invalidated. A court drew a new map in which all of Laredo was moved into the 28th district while the south San Antonio area was moved to the 23rd. An election open to all candidates with a runoff if no candidate won 50% was scheduled for the date of the general election, November 7, 2006.
In the general election on November 7, 2006, Cuellar had no Republican opposition but handily defeated Ron Avery of McQueeney, the chairman of the conservative Constitution Party in Guadalupe County, and trial attorney and Democrat Frank Enriquez of McAllen by taking nearly 68 percent of the more than 77,000 votes cast in the House race.
Cuellar's two main political rivals, Bonilla and Rodriguez, ran against each other in the 23rd, and Rodriguez won the election in the runoff. The Republican Bonilla was hence out of Congress for the first time since his upset election in 1992.
Cuellar was unopposed in the March 4, 2008, Democratic primary.
In the November 4 general election, Cuellar easily defeated Republican James Taylor Fish (born 1958), a San Antonio-based health care consultant who resides in Cibolo in Guadalupe County.[4] Jim Fish, as he is known, was a health care administrator for seventeen years while he served in the United States Air Force. He also taught finance in the Army-Baylor University Graduate School of Health Care Administration. Fish, an ordained Southern Baptist deacon, opposed same-sex marriage. Fish said that he decided to oppose Cuellar after watching the congressman's exchange with Sheriff Rick Flores over border security issues during a 2007 broadcast of the Glenn Beck television program, then on CNN.[5]
Cuellar received 123,310 votes (68.7 percent) to Fish's 52,394 (29.2 percent) and 3,715 ballots (2.1 percent) for Libertarian Ross Lynn Leone (born September 8, 1946) of Seguin. In his native Webb County, Cuellar polled 41,567 votes (89.5 percent) to Fish's 4,089 votes (8.9 percent).[6]
Cuellar was unopposed for his Democratic nomination in 2010. As a result of Cuellar's votes on cap and trade and the Obama health care initiative, two Republicans, Daniel Chavez, a utility company employee from Mission in Hidalgo County, and Bryan Keith Underwood (born ca. 1964), a carpenter from Seguin in Guadalupe County, filed for their party's nomination to oppose Cuellar in the November 2 general election. Underwood polled 13,599 votes (73.9 percent) to Chavez's 4,794 (26.1 percent).[7]
Underwood raised more funds than Cuellar's prior Republican opponents, but questions were raised in Underwood's hometown newspaper, the Seguin Gazette, about Underwood's criminal record, which includes a guilty plea for a felony criminal mischief charge, which is normally a misdemeanor. Underwood also on one occasion refused to present his identification to a law enforcement officer.
Cuellar prevailed, as expected, with 62,055 votes (56.2 percent) to Underwood's 46,417 (42 percent). The remaining 1,880 ballots (1.7 percent) were cast for the Libertarian Party choice Stephen Kaat. While Underwood won in Guadalupe, Wilson, McMullen, and Atascosa counties, Cuellar's margin in his own heavily Democratic Webb County (25,415 to 3,569) was more than enough otherwise to ensure his victory for a fourth term in the incoming Republican-majority House of Representatives.[8]
Cuellar is a member of the New Democrat Coalition. He has been given a Senior Whip position within the caucus and is also the Subcommittee Chairman for House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border, Maritime and Global Counterterrorism. He also serves as the only Texas Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee.
Cuellar describes himself as a "moderate-centrist". In the 2006 primary, he gained the endorsement of the Club for Growth, a conservative group that usually endorses Republicans. He has not always been a party loyalist; he endorsed Republican George W. Bush for President in 2000 but supported John F. Kerry in 2004. Additionally, during Bush's 2006 State of the Union address, a Washington Post photographer snapped a photo of Cuellar standing on the Republican side of the aisle, beaming as President Bush affectionately grabbed his face. Soon after the release of this photo, campaign contributions for his Democratic primary opponent, Ciro Rodriguez, saw an immediate and significant increase. Cuellar defeated Rodriguez in the primary election and since then has seen an increased role within the Democratic House Caucus.
On June 26, 2009, Cuellar voted with the House majority to pass, 219-212, the cap and trade legislation, the American Clean Energy and Security Act.[9] He also supported the Affordable Health Care for America Act, which also narrowly passed the House and in December 2009 met the threshold for shutting off debate in the U.S. Senate by a single vote. As a pro-life Democrat, Cuellar expressed concerns that the Senate health care bill allowed federal funding for abortion. Cuellar voted on March 21, 2010, for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which passed the chamber, 219-212, the same vote as "cap-and-trade."[10]
On June 15, 2007, Cuellar announced that he was endorsing then U.S. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton for President in 2008: "Senator Clinton is the only candidate with the experience and toughness to hit the ground running on her first day in the White House." In 2007, Cuellar held a fundraiser for Clinton in Laredo, which raised over $200,000 – aided by the presence of former President Bill Clinton. Laredo's Democratic Mayor Raul G. Salinas joined Cuellar in early support of Hillary Clinton, who came to Laredo in October 2008 to endorse Cuellar's reelection to the U.S. House. On November 4, 2008, Democrat Barack Obama defeated Republican John McCain in Webb County with a margin of 71-28 percent.
Congressman Cuellar is the author and one of two main co-sponsors of legislation seeking to honor slain ICE agent Jaime Zapata. Billed as a border security bill, it would increase cooperation among state, local, and federal law enforcement agencies during investigations of human and drug smuggling from Mexico.
Cuellar and his wife, Imelda, have two daughters, Christina Alexandra and Catherine Ann. He has been recognized by the city of Laredo with two schools named in his honor: the Doctor Henry Cuellar Elementary School and the Representative Henry Cuellar Charter School.
Texas House of Representatives | ||
---|---|---|
Preceded by William N. "Billy" Hall, Jr. |
Member of the Texas House of Representatives from District 43 (Laredo) 1987–1993 |
Succeeded by Pedro G. Nieto |
Preceded by Renato Cuellar |
Member of the Texas House of Representatives from District 42 (Laredo) 1993–2001 |
Succeeded by Richard Pena Raymond |
Political offices | ||
Preceded by Elton Bomer |
Secretary of State of Texas January–October 2001 |
Succeeded by Gwyn Shea |
United States House of Representatives | ||
Preceded by Ciro Rodriguez |
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Texas's 28th congressional district 2005–present |
Incumbent |
United States order of precedence | ||
Preceded by Jim Costa D-California |
United States Representatives by seniority 236th |
Succeeded by Geoff Davis R-Kentucky |
|