Rep. Solomon Ortiz (D)

The congressman from the 27th District is Solomon Ortiz, a Democrat and the only representative this district has had since its creation in the 1982 redistricting. He grew up inland from Corpus in the Canta Ranas (singing frogs) neighborhood of Robstown, which is known for its political activism. His father died when he was 14, leaving him the eldest of four children who scratched out a living as migrant farmworkers, sometimes working as far away as Colorado and Michigan. Ortiz worked as an Army investigator and translator, adding French to the Spanish he already spoke fluently. He took a correspondence course in police work and returned home to run for constable. In 1976, he was the first Hispanic elected Nueces County sheriff. In his first run for Congress, he got only 26% in the primary, but he made a propitious alliance with Democratic leaders in the Brownsville area and won the runoff with 52%. He has not been seriously challenged since.

Ortiz’s voting record has leaned toward the conservative end of House Democrats. He is a sturdy internationalist, an enthusiastic supporter of NAFTA and of normalizing trade relations with China. During the immigration-reform debate in recent years, he expressed reservations about President George W. Bush’s guest-worker program, saying it served corporate interests and adding that he preferred to focus on family reunification. He also opposed the Bush administration’s “catch and release” program for illegal immigrants caught along the border, where there are insufficient detention centers.

As the chairman on the Readiness Subcommittee of the Armed Services Committee, Ortiz looked out for the large military installations in the Coastal Bend region around Corpus Christi and has adamantly opposed additional rounds of base closings. The Coastal Bend region was hit hard by the 2005 round of base closings: Naval Station Ingleside, which has supported the Navy’s fleet of mine hunters and minesweepers, was closed, with a net loss of 7,000 civilian and military employees; Naval Air Station Corpus Christi was realigned, with a net loss of 1,000 jobs. Ortiz blamed “mixed signals” from members of the Corpus Christi community, including some who saw opportunities for development of the prime real estate. When the General Accounting Office reported in 2007 that the Pentagon had spent $10 billion more than expected on the 2005 round of base closings, Ortiz said it bolstered his long-held view that “the process was flawed and would not achieve the savings DOD (Department of Defense) boasted it would.” Ortiz has sought without success to bring a Veterans Administration hospital to the valley, but he has been able to expand some clinics that serve his district’s more than 100,000 veterans.

In recent years, Ortiz has also attracted a spate of negative publicity back home over ethics issues. In 2001, five months after the Port of Corpus Christi dedicated its new conference center in his name, the San Antonio Express-News reported that he got favored treatment when the port awarded a contract for security to a firm he owned even though it was not the low bidder. Ortiz defended the contract as awarded in open competition, but in 2003, he agreed to sell the business. In 2005, the Los Angeles Times reported that Ortiz and his top aide took a free trip to Asia after getting a courthouse named for the father of the lawyer who paid for the trip. Ortiz called it a coincidence.

Still, he remains strong politically. In 2000 and 2002, Ortiz’s Republican opponent was former Brownsville Mayor Pat Ahumada, who tried to take advantage of the controversy over the port’s contract with Ortiz. Ortiz won with over 60% of the vote each time. Ingleside Mayor Willie Vaden ran against him in the past three elections and lost each time, though he narrowed Ortiz’s victory to 58%-38% in 2008. Ortiz reportedly is grooming his son, Solomon Ortiz Jr., to succeed him. His son represents Nueces County in the Texas House.