Congressman O’Rourke wins 3rd term in Congress
Congressman Beto O’Rourke will win a third term in congress.
Final voting numbers on the El Paso County website show that O’Rourke received 148,027 votes, or 85.77 percent. He faced no Republican candidate. Libertarian challenger Jaime O. Perez received 17,144 votes, or 9.93 percent. Green Party Candidate Mary Gourdoux had 7,413 votes at 4.3 percent.
Texas District 16 of the United States House of Representatives is a Congressional district that serves El Paso and the surrounding area in the state of Texas.
REP. BETO O ROURKE
Beto O’Rourke was elected to represent the people of the 16th District of Texas in November of 2012.
Prior to his congressional service, Beto O’Rourke served two terms on the El Paso City Council. Born and raised in El Paso, he has been deeply involved in civic, business and community efforts in his hometown.
O’Rourke is a graduate of Columbia University. He is married to Amy Sanders and they have three children together.
Committee assignments:
House Armed Services Committee
– Subcommittee on Readiness
– Subcommittee on Military Personnel
House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs
– Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations (O&I)
– Subcommittee on Health
JAIME O PEREZ
Perez, who used to be a Republican, is a 2016 Libertarian candidate seeking election to the U.S. House to represent the 16th Congressional District of Texas.
He is also a political commentator for the El Paso community. In an interview with ABC-7, Perez said he admires Rep. O Rourke, but that O’ Rourke is not providing leadership, and is partisan.
Perez ran in the 2014 election for the U.S. House to represent Texas’ 16th District. Perez won the Libertarian Party nomination at the state convention in April 2014. He was defeated by incumbent O’ Rourke in the general election in 2014.
In 2013, he ran for El Paso Mayor as a Republican while he served as the Chief of Staff for the El Paso County Judge.
Perez was a Libertarian candidate for Texas Railroad Commission in the 2012 elections.
Perez told ABC-7 he’s running to give El Paso an independent voice. He says the Libertarian party combines the best of both major parties: the social agenda of democrats, and the fiscal conservative policies of the republican party.
He says we have to stop the deficit spending in the country. Perez warns he sees an economic collapse in the near future if nothing is changed.
He also is against the Trans-Pacific Partnership. He told ABC-7 that free trade will kill the maquiladora industry in Juarez, and in turn, kill El Paso’s downtown economy.
He received a Bachelor’s degree from Brandeis University on the east coast, a Master’s degree from the University of California at Berkeley and attended Master’s and Doctoral level courses at the University of Texas at Austin and Colegio de Mexico in Mexico City. His training included an intensive course in Community Building at the JFK School of Harvard University.
MARY GOURDOUX
Mary Gourdoux is the Green Party candidate for District 16.
She relocated to El Paso during high school and graduated from Burges. As the daughter in a military family, Gourdoux moved around throughout her childhood, changing schools twelve times in twelve years.
She graduated with a B.A. from UTEP in 1970 with a major in Radio and Television and returned to UTEP to earn her teacher certification in 1977.
Gourdoux is running is to show her opposition to the Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership, TPP. She says citizens need to be educated on the damage this trade bill could cause.
She says she is also against the death penalty and the building of nuclear weapons at Los Alamos, NM.
Other issues she says where she might differ from Rep. O’Rourke is the country’s long wars, our military presence around the world and our need to get off fossil fuels.
