Roberto R. Alonzo was officially sworn in to commence his ninth 2-year term as Texas State Representative for House District 104 in January 2015, having been first elected in November 1992, Rep. Alonzo began his first term during the 73rd Regular Session in 1993. He has since served from the 74th (1995), 78th (2003), 79th (2005), 80th (2007), 81st (2009) and 82nd (2011), 83rd (2013) and 84th (2015) regular Sessions. Originally from Crystal City, State Rep. Alonzo serves House District 104 in the Legislature, which is in Southwest Dallas including primarily the communities of Oak Cliff, Cockrell Hill, Grand Prairie, North Oak Cliff, West Dallas, Arcadia Park, as well as a portion of south Irving.
When he was first elected, Rep. Alonzo made history by becoming the first Mexican American from North Texas elected to the Legislature, outdistancing his opponents by a 2 to 1 margin with over 66% percent of the vote. However, making history is nothing new to Rep. Alonzo. In 1978, as a college student, Rep. Alonzo became the first Hispanic elected President of the Student Government at the University of Texas at Austin. An accomplished attorney, Rep. Alonzo is an alumnus of Thurgood Marshal School of Law at Texas Southern University, where he obtained his Doctor of Jurisprudence in 1984. He is currently a self-practitioner and small business owner in Dallas where he specializes in criminal law. In addition to his law practice, Rep. Alonzo is actively involved in a number of community affairs in the Dallas metroplex area. A former Board Member of both the Greater Dallas Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and the Dallas Area Rapid Transit Authority (DART), he has also served as an active Board Member of Hispanic PAC/USA in Washington, D.C. and the Mexican American Bar Association.
Rep. Alonzo currently serves on the Higher Education Committee, Calendars Committee, House Administration Committee, and as Vice Chair of the Pensions Committee. He was named Legislator of the Year in 2015, by the Texas Public Employees Association, a non-union, non-partisan legislative advocacy organization for Texas state government employees and retirees. Rep. Alonzo distinguished himself in the eyes of the association’s 15,000 members for the leadership role they took in addressing the unfunded liabilities of the Employees Retirement System (ERS) pension fund through the authorship and passage of House Bill 9. Rep. Roberto R. Alonzo is also an active member of both the National Conference of State Legislators (NCSL) and the National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators (NHCSL), and serves as Chair of the Higher Education Task Force in the Mexican American Legislative Caucus. He is a former member of the Border and Intergovernmental Affairs Committee and Redistricting Committee in the Texas State House of Representatives.
Rep. Alonzo is married to the former Sylvana Avila, also of Crystal City. They have three children: Roberto , Jr.; Maria Xiomara; and Jose Maria Emeterio.
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Roberto Alonzo – HD104
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Ana E. Hernandez-HD 143
State Representative Ana Hernandez was elected in a special election in December 2005 to represent District 143 in the Texas House of Representatives. District 143 covers part of Houston, Channelview and the cities of Galena Park and Jacinto City. She serves on the House Committee on Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence and on the House Committee on Pensions. She is currently serving her fifth full term.
Ana was born in Reynosa, Mexico and raised in Pasadena, Texas. She comes from a very close-knit and hardworking family, and is the younger of two daughters. She enjoys spending time with her young son, Gregory Eli.
Ana graduated from Sam Rayburn High School in Pasadena when she was 16 years old, and received her Bachelor of Science in Political Science and Psychology from the University of Houston. During her undergraduate studies, Ana participated in a Peace Corps internship program in South Africa where she worked with local community leaders as they rebuilt their educational system post-apartheid. She went on to receive her Doctor of Jurisprudence from the University of Texas School of Law in May of 2004.
In addition to representing District 143 in the Texas House of Representatives, she also practices law at Soto & Hernandez, L.L.P. Ana believes in serving her community and has volunteered and served on the boards of various professional, civic and charitable organizations.
She has received numerous awards and honors including the Texas Association of Bilingual Educator’s “Community Advocacy Award” and recognition as a 2014 and 2015 “Rising Star” by Super Lawyers Magazine and a “2014 Distinguished Alumnus” by Sam Rayburn High School. She has also been honored as a champion for women’s health by both Planned Parenthood and the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). Additionally, Ana has been included in Hispanic Business magazine’s “Most Influential List” and named as one of “20 Latino Democrats to Watch” by the Houston Chronicle.
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Trey Martinez Fischer
Representative Trey Martinez Fischer, a member of an emerging group of Latino leaders in the United States, has built his career as a no-nonsense, down-to-business Democrat. Currently serving his seventh term representing District 116 in San Antonio, he was recently named one of the 10 Best Legislators of 2013 by Texas Monthly Magazine, who described him as a “soldier prepared to do battle but ready to make peace.” The Houston Chronicle and the San Francisco Chronicle named him one of the “20 Latino political rising stars of 2012,” placing him among those under 55 “who just might change the face of American politics over the next two decades.” In 2010, Campaigns and Elections Magazine named him a “Texas Influencer” and one of the Top-50 Democrats in the state. The New York Times has dubbed him a “heavy hitter” whose “loyalty to San Antonio remains steadfast.”
Representative Martinez Fischer is the chairman of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, the oldest and largest Latino legislative caucus in the United States. During his Chairmanship, the Caucus has emerged as one of the leading Latino public policy organizations and the “group to watch” in the Texas Legislature according to The Economist magazine. In 2012, Chairman Martinez Fischer led the Mexican American Legislative Caucus in two victorious court battles concerning redistricting and voter/photo identification that will be remembered in Texas civil rights history. Representative Martinez Fischer is an accomplished lawmaker who serves as a floor leader, guiding key bills to passage or defeat, and is recognized as an expert on the House rules of procedure. In 2011, Texas Monthly named him the “Bull of the Brazos” in recognition of his passionate commitment to bringing balance and accountability to a legislative session dominated by a few on the far right. In giving him this award, Texas Monthly wrote that “without TMF the Democrats would have had no champion at all”. He has also been recognized as the “2013 Friend of Education” and a “Legislative Star” by the Texas Classroom Teachers Association for fighting harmful legislation that would short-change our children’s future.
This year, Representative Martinez Fischer played a pivotal role in restoring education funding to Texas schools and was a major player in the state budget negotiations that resulted in $3.9 billion in increased education funding. He is also a passionate advocate for government transparency and accountability as a member of the Select Committee on Transparency in State Operations and recently fought to preserve the voting rights of all Texans on the Select Redistricting Committee. With the passage of House Bill 26 in 2013, he succeeded in protecting some of our most vulnerable Texans by expanding unemployment benefits eligibility to include victims of sexual assault or family members of victims of sexual assault. HB 26 ensures that neither the victims nor their employers are penalized if a victim or employee whose family member is a victim are forced to leave an employer following a sexual assault. In order to make the legislative process more accessible to everyone, Representative Martinez Fischer authored HB 1271, or “the hyperlink bill,” under which legislative bills posted online will include ‘hyperlinks’ to the statutory provisions referenced in the bill. This simple and low-cost maneuver will make legislative bills easier to understand and more accessible to the public. Born and raised in San Antonio, Representative Martinez Fischer has worked with the San Antonio business community to find practical solutions to complex problems throughout his career in the legislature. In 2009, he authored HB 1922, which doubled San Antonio’s capacity to provide recycled water to businesses to meet the demands of expanding industries while conserving water for a fast-growing region. He also authored an amendment requiring our state Employee Retirement System to hire emerging fund managers, many of which are minority and women-owned businesses. In 2011, he was the lead Democratic author on HB 3727, the Boeing Bill, which created hundreds of high-paying manufacturing jobs in San Antonio to build, test, and repair the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. As a result of this bill, Air Force One will be refitted and repaired in San Antonio. Representative Martinez Fischer sits on the Natural Resources and Ways and Means Committees as well as the Select Committee on Transparency in State Agency Operations. He was also selected by Texas House Speaker Joe Straus to serve on the Select Committee on
Redistricting during the first called special session of the 83rd Legislature. An accomplished lawyer, Representative Martinez Fischer is a 1998 graduate of the University of Texas School of Law and has practiced before state and federal courts throughout Texas since 1998. He earned a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Texas San Antonio and in 1993 was selected as a National Urban Fellow, earning him a Masters in Public Administration from the Baruch College of Public Affairs in New York, NY. Representative Martinez Fischer and his wife, Elizabeth Provencio, an attorney and San Antonio Water System trustee, are the proud parents of two daughters: Francesca, who is 4 1/2 years old, and Camilla, who is 3 years old.
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