Rep. Jose Serrano (D) Elected Mar. 1990, 7th term
Born:	Oct. 24, 1943, Mayaguez, PR
Home:	Bronx
Education:	Lehman Col.
Religion:	Catholic
Marital Status:	married (Mary)
Elected  Office:	Dist. 7 Schl. Bd., 1969-74; NY Assembly, 1974-90.
Military Career:	Army Medical Corps, 1964-66.
Professional Career:	Banker, 1961-69.
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It may not quite be "the beautiful Bronx," as borough historian Lloyd Utlan calls it, but The Bronx seems to have rebounded from rock bottom. The beautiful days were in the 1930s and 1940s, when Presidents Roosevelt and Truman rode down 138th Street, when Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Joe DiMaggio knocked home runs out of Yankee Stadium, when Art Deco apartment buildings were built along the Grand Concourse, when shoppers thronged Tremont Avenue stores, and when Bronx County Democratic Chairman Ed Flynn was Chairman of the Democratic National Committee. As early as the 1880s, the Bronx (then known as the Northside and only recently annexed from Westchester County) was linked to the level eastern half of Manhattan by elevated steam locomotives. But the borough really took off in 1906 with the arrival of the first subway, which allowed the children of immigrants to move from grim Lower East Side tenements to spacious walkup apartments flooded with light. The Bronx's population grew from 200,000 in 1900 to 430,000 in 1910--enough, had the borough been independent, to rank as America's sixth largest city--and 1.2 million in 1930. The Bronx's population peaked at nearly 1.5 million in 1950. But after a quarter-century of deterioration, the population shrunk to 1.2 million by 1990. Now it's up again, to 1.3 million in 2000, as new immigrants revive neighborhoods that had been given up for dead.

The downfall began in the mid-1960s. Rent control, insisted upon by tenants, guaranteed that owners of low-rent property wouldn't maintain it; once empty, many buildings were torched for the insurance money, sometimes as many as four blocks a week. At the same time, a drop in low-income, low-skill jobs in Manhattan and the Bronx--abetted by high, union-enforced wages and organized crime--led to a rise in welfare dependency and crime, with empty building shells becoming the perfect venue for drug dealing. And the 13-year, $250 million effort to build the Cross-Bronx Expressway--a brainchild of Robert Moses that crossed 113 streets and avenues, hundreds of utility mains and ten mass-transit lines--made things worse. As workers plowed through acres of tough bedrock, the project shredded entire neighborhoods, forcing 40,000 people to move from their homes and forever changing the landscape. In the upheaval, longtime residents fled in droves--whites to the suburbs or the Sun Belt, Puerto Ricans to their homeland, African Americans to the South or other cities--and the rapid turnover strained PTAs and other civic institutions. A vicious cycle emerged: Crime drove away jobs, which drove away fathers, which produced more crime. When Tom Wolfe imagined the "wrong turn" that sunk a high-flying Wall Street career in Bonfire of the Vanities, he set it in the South Bronx; the movie version filmed the scene under the Bruckner Expressway.

Presidents and presidential candidates came in--Jimmy Carter in 1977, Ronald Reagan in 1980--promising help. Ironically, the South Bronx was never the worst slum in New York; it just looked the worst. The borough's saviors were churches and creative community groups which, without much centralized planning, built single-family pastel bungalows and small-scale apartment projects for the elderly, single-parent families and former homeless. With their help, the South Bronx has turned a corner. The building spree of the 1990s created the Bronx's first new wave of housing starts since the 1950s, and the first new cluster of private residences since the 1930s. While Bronx County still has the third-highest percentage of single mothers in America, and while rates of childhood asthma are among the nation's highest, low-income families in the Bronx are now finding it possible to work their way up. Local institutions such as Bronx-Lebanon Hospital have helped, employing area residents and providing neighborhood stability. As immigrants from Ecuador, Ghana and Bangladesh settled in, the population once again rose; a few corners of the South Bronx have even seen yuppies and artists colonizing old industrial space. Charlotte Street, which Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan once visited as the worst of the slums, is now Charlotte Gardens, with owner-occupied houses worth $180,000. As with other parts of New York City, the main obstacle now for the South Bronx is its weak commercial sector--a legacy of redlining and the reality of the area's low disposable incomes. Here, bank branches are still far outnumbered by check-cashing outlets, and theaters and restaurants virtually nonexistent.

The 16th Congressional District includes most of the South Bronx. It is bounded by the Harlem River on the west, the East River on the south, the Bronx River and Bronx Park (home of the Bronx Zoo) on the east, and goes just past Fordham Road on the north. It includes the Parisian-style Grand Concourse, where single-family homes for the wealthy were replaced in the 1930s by stylish Art Deco apartment buildings; this was one of America's biggest Jewish neighborhoods up through the 1960s. It also includes Belmont, a Bronx "Little Italy" and site of an old-fashioned food market on Arthur Avenue; Belmont now has a growing number of Albanians. The 16th also includes the low-rent commercial strips of Westchester Avenue, Boston Road and the Hub, and the industrial flatlands of Bruckner Boulevard, Mott Haven and Hunts Point (though not the meat and produce markets). The 16th is 30% black, 63% Hispanic--the highest percentage in any New York district. This has long been New York's largest concentration of Puerto Ricans, but an increasing proportion of Hispanics here now are from other parts of Latin America. Politically, this was the most Democratic district in the country in 2000--92% for Al Gore and just 5% for George W. Bush.

The congressman from the 16th District is Jose Serrano (pronounced sa-RAH-no), chosen in a March 1990 special election. A native of Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, who grew up in the Millbrook project in the South Bronx, Serrano moved up while other Bronx politicians fell by the wayside because of corruption. He was elected to the New York Assembly in 1974 and chaired its Education Committee beginning in 1983; in 1985, he ran for Bronx borough president, bucking the Democratic organization, and nearly won. Then in January 1990, South Bronx Congressman Robert Garcia was convicted for accepting money from the minority contractor Wedtech; his conviction was later reversed, but his resignation led to Serrano's election to the House.

Serrano has one of the most liberal voting records in the House. As ranking Democrat on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, State and the Judiciary, he has used that position to redress past injustices by the FBI. In 1997, when Bill Richardson resigned from the House to become ambassador to the United Nations, Minority Leader Dick Gephardt passed over Serrano for the less senior Robert Menendez of New Jersey--a better fundraiser, with his Cuban-American connections--to be chief deputy whip. In 1998 Serrano ran for Democratic Caucus vice-chairman as "the candidate who refuses to raise money to buy your vote for leadership." But he withdrew in favor of Menendez, and supported him when he later became caucus chairman. By contrast, Serrano is known as Fidel Castro's greatest champion in the House. He says he admires Castro and has sought repeal of economic sanctions and the Helms-Burton Act. With eventual help from farm states, he led efforts to overturn the four-decade embargo of Cuba.

The pro-statehood Serrano has devoted much time to the cause of Puerto Rico, which he calls an American "colony." But the move toward statehood stalled. Serrano strongly defended Bill Clinton's 1999 clemency for Puerto Ricans members of the FALN terrorist group as an example of reconciliation. In May 2000, he was arrested for blocking passage at the White House to protest the Navy's bombing range at Vieques, Puerto Rico. When Jim Hansen condemned the protestors as ingrates who "sit down there on welfare," Serrano took offense and said that Hansen did not understand the U.S. relationship with Puerto Rico. Later, some New York City Democrats criticized him for lobbying for light rail in Puerto Rico instead of seeking transit money for New York.

In New York politics, Serrano takes strongly liberal positions. He backed Al Sharpton for mayor in 1997 and Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer in 2001; Sharpton lost in the Democratic primary and Ferrer in the runoff. In November 1997 he told colleagues he would run for mayor in 2001, but later said he was not interested. Meanwhile, Serrano was alert to affronts from other quarters. When Yankee owner George Steinbrenner threatened to move the team out of the South Bronx's Yankee Stadium, Serrano called on Clinton to declare it a national landmark; but as Steinbrenner's spokesman pointed out, landmark status would prevent the changes needed to make the stadium profitable and structurally sound. Serrano persuaded the House to award a Congressional Gold Medal to Frank Sinatra, whose work he has admired.

As minority leader, Nancy Pelosi named Serrano as one of three vice-chairmen of the Democratic Steering Committee, which makes committee assignments. With little change to the 16th from redistricting, Serrano appears secure for another decade.

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DC Office
2227 RHOB 20515, 202-225-4361; Fax: 202-225-6001; Web site: www.house.gov/serrano

State Offices
Bronx, 718-538-5400.

Committees

• Appropriations (10th of 29 D): Commerce, Justice, State & Judiciary (RMM); Homeland Security.

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	CON	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2002	90	93	100	100	43	50	24	37	0	3	0
2001	85	--	100	71	--	--	10	35	0	--	--

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2001 LIB	--	2001 CONS		2002 LIB	--	2002 CONS
Economic	78%	--	22%		92%	--	7%
Social	90%	--	0%		84%	--	8%
Foreign	81%	--	18%		92%	--	7%
For National Journal's complete 2002 Vote Ratings, as well as previous ratings dating back to 1995, please click here.

Key Votes Of The 107th Congress (More Info)
1. Approve Bush Tax Cuts N 2. Limit Patients' Bill of Rights N 3. Campaign Finance Reform Y 4. Ban ANWR Development Y 5. Faith-Based Charities N 6. Bar Gays in the Boy Scouts *		7. Ban Partial-Birth Abortion N  8. Arm Commercial Pilots N  9. Trade Promotion Authority N 10. Bar Funds for Intl. Court N 11. Authorize Force in Iraq N 12. Deny Home. Sec. Dept. Union N

Election Results (More Info)
	Candidate	Total Votes	Percent	Expenditures
2002 general	Jose Serrano (D-WF)	50,716	92%	$214,152
	Frank Dellavalle (R-C)	4,366	8%
2002 primary	Jose Serrano (D)	unopposed
2000 general	Jose Serrano (D-L)	103,041	96%	$210,037
	Aaron Justice (R)	3,934	4%
	Other	571	1%
Prior winning percentages: 1998 (95%); 1996 (96%); 1994 (96%); 1992 (91%); 1990 (93%); 1990 (92%)

2000 presidential
	Gore (D)	112,786	92%
	Bush (R)	6,634	5%
	Other	2,630	2%
For 1992 and 1996 presidential results in the Sixteenth District, please see the Almanac 2000 online. Please note that these older returns reflect district lines as they existed prior to 2002 redistricting.

• Cook Partisan Voting Index: D +44
• District Size: 13 square miles
• Population in 2000: 654,360; 100.0% urban; 0.0% rural
• Median Household Income: $19,311; 42.2% are below the poverty line
• Occupation: 23.6% blue collar; 46.4% white collar; 30.0% gray collar; 3.9% military veterans
• Race/Ethnic Origin: 2.9% White, 30.3% Black, 1.6% Asian, 0.3% Amer. Indian, 0.0% Hawaiian, 1.6% Two+ races, 0.5% Other, 62.8% Hispanic origin
• Ancestry: 3.9% West Indian, 3.1% Subsaharan, 2.3% USA
• Click here for statewide demographic data.