Robert Francis "Beto" O'Rourke ( ; born September 26, 1972) is an American politician and businessman serving as the U.S. Representative for Texas's 16th congressional district since 2013. He is the nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2018 Texas U.S. Senate race, running against Republican incumbent Ted Cruz.
A native of El Paso, he was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 2012 by defeating incumbent Democratic U.S. Representative Silvestre Reyes in the Democratic primary that year. The district includes most of El Paso County. Prior to his election to Congress, O'Rourke was on the El Paso City Council from June 2005 to June 2011.
O'Rourke is a fourth-generation Irish American,[1] born in El Paso, the son of Melissa Martha (Williams) and El Paso County Judge[a] Pat Francis O'Rourke.[2][3][4] He was nicknamed "Beto", which is a common Spanish nickname for "Roberto", before kindergarten.[5][6] His father was a political associate of former Texas Governor Mark White. Judge O'Rourke was killed in July 2001, at the age of fifty-eight, when he was struck from behind by a car while riding his bicycle over the New Mexico state line.[7]
O'Rourke attended Carlos Rivera and Mesita Elementary Schools and El Paso High School. He graduated from Woodberry Forest School in 1991. In the early 1990s, he was a bassist[8] in the band Foss, which included Cedric Bixler-Zavala (vocalist for At the Drive-In and The Mars Volta) on vocals and drums, Arlo Klahr on vocals and guitar, and Mike Stevens on vocals and guitar. The group released a self-titled demo and a 7" record, "The El Paso Pussycats", on Western Breed Records in 1993. They released a subsequent album, Fewel Street, in 1995, also on Western. Foss toured the United States and Canada in the summer of 1993 and again, along with Bixler's concurrent band, Los Dregtones, in the summer of 1994.
O'Rourke attended Columbia University where he captained Columbia's rowing crew.[9] He graduated from Columbia in 1995 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature.[10][11] He is fluent in Spanish.[12]
O'Rourke was arrested by University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) police in 1995 on burglary charges after jumping a fence on the university's property.[13][14] The UTEP police department later declined to pursue charges.[14] In 1998, O'Rourke was arrested for driving while intoxicated (DWI), but the charges were later dismissed in 1999 after he completed a court-recommended DWI program.[11][13][14] He has publicly discussed the incident since that time and has apologized for it.[15]
Following college, O'Rourke worked at Internet service providers in New York City[16] before his return to El Paso in 1998.[17] The following year, he co-founded Stanton Street Technology, an internet services and software company that develops websites and software.[16][18] His wife, Amy, operates the business as of March 2017.[19]
In mid-2005, O'Rourke ran for the El Paso City Council and defeated two-term incumbent City Councilman Anthony Cobos, 57%–43%.[20][21] O'Rourke is one of the youngest representatives to have ever served on the City Council.[22] In 2007, he won re-election to a second term, defeating Trini Acevedo, 70%–30%.[23][24]
In January 2009, O'Rourke sponsored a resolution calling for a "comprehensive examination" of the War on Drugs and "the repeal of ineffective marijuana laws".[25] The resolution, which was unanimously supported by his colleagues on the El Paso City Council, was vetoed by then-Mayor John Cook and spurred a larger national discussion on the topic.[25][26][27] 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, Chihuahua, Mexico.[28] "I hope it has all had its intended effect 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."[29]
2012
In 2012, O'Rourke filed for the Democratic primary against the eight-term Silvestre Reyes to represent Texas's 16th congressional district. The primary was seen as the real contest in this deeply Democratic, Latino-majority district.[12] O'Rourke took 50.5 percent of the vote, just a few hundred votes above the threshold required to avoid a runoff against Reyes.[30] He was contrasted with Reyes in his support for LGBT rights[31] and drug liberalization.[32] He defeated his Republican opponent, Barbara Carrasco, in the general election with 65 percent of the vote.[33]
2014
O'Rourke was re-elected in 2014 with 67% of the vote.
During the fall of 2014, O'Rourke donated at least $28,000 from his own campaign funds to fellow Democratic candidates for House seats.[34]
2016
In October 2015, O'Rourke announced his bid for a third term in 2016.[35] He won the Democratic primary and defeated his Green and Libertarian opponents in the general election.[36]
Caucus memberships
On March 31, 2017, O'Rourke formally announced his candidacy for the United States Senate seat held by incumbent Republican Party member Ted Cruz.[39] O'Rourke raised $2 million within the first three months, mostly from small donations. O'Rourke pledged during the campaign not to accept PAC contributions for his Senate campaign.[40][41] During the campaign, PolitiFact rated his claim of not taking PAC money as "true".[42]
In March 2018, O'Rourke became the Democratic Party nominee, winning 61.8% of the primary vote.[43] He received his first major organizational endorsement from End Citizens United in June 2017,[44] which found that he had raised triple the funds of Cruz without accepting corporate special interest money.[45]
O'Rourke is a member of the New Democrat Coalition, which is described as moderate or centrist.[37] He is sometimes considered to be a progressive or liberal Democrat.[46][47] The non-partisan National Journal gave O'Rourke a composite ideology of 85% liberal and 15% conservative in 2013.[48] Describing himself, O'Rourke has said that he does not know where he falls on the political spectrum, and he has sponsored bipartisan bills as well as broken with his party on issues like free trade.[49]GovTrack places Representative O'Rourke near the ideological center of the House Democrats, being to the right of some and to the left of others; the American Civil Liberties Union gave him an 88% rating, while the United States Chamber of Commerce, a more fiscally conservative group, gave him a 47% rating.[50] According to FiveThirtyEight, which tracks Congressional voting records, O'Rourke has voted in line with President Trump's position on legislation 28.7% of the time as of August 2018.[51]
O'Rourke favors the decriminalization of possession and sale of small amounts of cannabis.[52] In 2011, O'Rourke co-authored a book, Dealing Death and Drugs: The Big Business of Dope in the U.S. and Mexico, which in part argues for an end to the prohibition on marijuana.[53][54] He has called for the arrest records of individuals sentenced for possession of small amounts of cannabis to be expunged.[52] During the 2018 Senate campaign, O'Rourke's opponent, Ted Cruz, falsely claimed that O'Rourke sought to legalize heroin; what he had actually called for in 2009 was an "honest, open national debate on ending the prohibition on narcotics".[52]
O'Rourke has called for an end to cash bail, saying it disproportionately places poor individuals in jail as they cannot afford bail.[52]
O'Rourke has a lifetime score of 100% from the Planned Parenthood Action Fund and a rating of 100% from NARAL Pro-Choice America.[55][56] He voted against the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion and Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act of 2017, which made a permanent prohibition on the use of federal funds for abortions and made reforms to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to prohibit qualified health plans from including coverage for abortions.[57][non-primary source needed ]
O'Rourke told the Dallas Voice that he called marriage equality a core civil rights issue during his House primary campaign. While on the El Paso City Council, O'Rourke led a successful fight to overturn the domestic partnership ban.[58] He was a co-sponsor of the Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act of 2013 (H.R. 3135).[59]
O'Rourke favors comprehensive immigration reform.[60] O'Rourke opposed Trump's decision to end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which granted temporary stay to some undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as minors.[61][62] O'Rourke said it is a "top priority" to protect DREAMers.[61] He has criticized President Donald Trump's rhetoric on immigration, saying: "[Trump is] constantly stoking anxiety and fear about Mexicans, immigrants and the border with Mexico. Unfortunately this President takes another step into a dark world of fear, isolation and separation."[7][63]
Ted Cruz asserted in 2018 that O'Rourke wanted "open borders and wants to take our guns."[64]PolitiFact found that Cruz's claims were "false," noting that O'Rourke had "not called for opening the borders or for government agents to take guns from law-abiding residents."[64]
In June 2018, O'Rourke led protests in Tornillo, Texas, to protest the Trump administration family separation policy which involved the separation of children of immigrant families. The city is located just miles from the Rio Grande, the river that creates the border of the United States and Mexico in the state of Texas. The Trump administration had created a "tent-city" in Tornillo, where separated children were being held without their parents. O'Rourke called this practice "Un-American" and the responsibility of all Americans.[65][66]
O'Rourke has expressed support for single-payer legislation to achieve universal health coverage,[67] but has released a statement saying he's critical of John Conyers' Medicare For All bill (HR 676) for not allocating funds toward for-profit healthcare providers.[68][69] He supports stabilization of the insurance markets to improve the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. He also supports the expansion of Medicaid[70][71] and is a co-sponsor of the Medicare-X Choice Act of 2017.[72]
On the evening of June 22, 2016, O'Rourke participated in the sit-in in the House of Representatives that attempted to force a vote on gun control legislation. When the Republicans ordered C-SPAN to turn off its normal coverage of the chamber, O'Rourke and Representative Scott Peters transmitted images by cell phone to social media for C-SPAN to broadcast.[73]
He supports universal background checks for gun purchases.[74] On March 7, 2018, O'Rourke told Alisyn Camerota of CNN: "We have a great tradition and culture of gun ownership and gun safety for hunting, for sport, for self-defense... I think that can allow Texas to take the lead on a really tough issue, which the country is waiting for leadership and action on."[75] He has called for a complete ban on assault rifles.[76]
In July 2018, O'Rourke said that Trump's performance while attending the 2018 Russia–United States summit in Helsinki warranted impeachment.[77] Addressing the Trump–Putin joint press conference of July 16, he said standing "on stage in another country with the leader of another country who wants to and has sought to undermine this country, and to side with him over the United States—if I were asked to vote on this I would vote to impeach the president".[78]
O'Rourke denounced the move of the US embassy to Jerusalem as "provocative".[79]
O'Rourke has spoken out against racial inequality. He supports the football players who have taken part in the "Take a knee" protests. Speaking in a video that went viral, O'Rourke said he believes there is "nothing more American than to peacefully stand up, or take a knee, for your rights, anytime, anywhere or any place."[80]
O'Rourke has signed the Pro-Truth Pledge.[81]
In 2016, when Nancy Pelosi faced a leadership challenge from Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio, O'Rourke backed Ryan.[82] O'Rourke said that he believed in term limits, and therefore that it was time for new leadership.[82]
In June 2016, O'Rourke endorsed Hillary Clinton for President. As a sitting member of Congress, O'Rourke was a superdelegate to the Democratic National Convention.[83]
O'Rourke married Amy Hoover Sanders, the daughter of Louann and William Sanders of El Paso, on September 24, 2005, in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The couple has three children.[10] Louann Sanders is the director of education development for the La Fe Community Development Corporation and executive director of the La Fe Preparatory charter school.[84]
In 2013, LegiStorm reported that O'Rourke may have violated the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act, which prohibits members of Congress from participating in the initial public offering (IPO) of company stocks. O'Rourke had purchased seven stocks, including stock in Twitter, at IPO prices, seeing a 39 percent increase on shares that he sold either the same day or within days of IPOs. After being contacted by LegiStorm, O'Rourke reported himself to the United States House Committee on Ethics.[85][86] The case was closed by the ethics committee after O'Rourke acknowledged that he may have violated the law and agreed to sell his remaining IPO shares and surrender his $7,136 in profit to the U.S. Treasury.[87][88]