Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D) Elected 1996, 4th term
Born:	Nov. 10, 1944, Canutillo
Home:	El Paso
Education:	El Paso Commun. Col., A.A. 1977
Religion:	Catholic
Marital Status:	married (Carolina)
Elected  Office:	Canutillo Schl. Board, 1968-70.
Military Career:	Army, 1966-68 (Vietnam).
Professional Career:	Border Patrol Agent, 1969-95.
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El Paso, Texas, and Juarez, Mexico, face each other across the narrow Rio Grande, their tree-shaded streets spread out below the rough brown face of Comanche Peak. The two border cities are surrounded by hundreds of miles of some of North America's most rugged and desolate landscape, 600 miles from Dallas-Fort Worth. There is much history here: Texas claims the first Thanksgiving took place in San Elizario near El Paso in 1598, and there were Spanish conquistadors coming through the pass of the north, El Paso del Norte, years before that. In the 1950s, El Paso and Juarez each had a population of 140,000; in 2000 U.S. Census counted 679,000 in El Paso County (78% of them counted as Hispanic) and the Mexican census counted 1.2 million in metro Juarez. This is a bilingual, bicultural pair of cities, where most people have a Mexican heritage; the thrust of growth comes from the fertile union of a Spanish-speaking people and an English-speaking economy. El Paso is one of the lowest-wage and lowest-education cities in the U.S.; Juarez is one of the highest-wage in Mexico. Maquiladora plants pioneered a cross-border economy and the NAFTA strengthened it, and it is not all low-skill either; south of the border, there is a big General Motors technical center.

The 16th Congressional District is made up of much of El Paso County--the city itself, the suburban fringe and giant Fort Bliss to the north and the colonias spread out to the east and south. El Paso feels distant from the rest of Texas--it's closer to Los Angeles than to Beaumont, and El Paso is in a different time zone from the rest of the state. As governor, George W. Bush paid close attention to El Paso, and in his 1998 reelection he carried El Paso County 50%-49%--a considerable achievement given the overwhelmingly Latino electorate. In 2000 though, Bush lost the county to Al Gore.

The congressman from the 16th District is Silvestre Reyes, a Democrat first elected in 1996. He grew up on a farm in Canutillo, five miles north of El Paso, the oldest of 10 children; he went to college in El Paso and Austin. He served in the Army in Vietnam, then "took as many civil service tests as I could, and the Border Patrol called" in 1969. He worked for the Immigration and Naturalization Service in four cities in Texas and Glynco, Georgia, and returned to El Paso in 1993 as chief patrol agent. When he got there he found that "people could basically cross the border at any time, wherever they wanted to." More than 40 boatmen ran "what were essentially international ferries" with 8,000 illegals crossing the border every day. In September 1993, Reyes started Operation Hold the Line, positioning 400 officers on the border instead of trying to intercept illegals after they had already crossed into El Paso (amazingly enough, that had been firmly-rooted INS policy). Mexico complained about threats to its sovereignty, merchants worried about loss of sales, homeowners fretted about finding domestic help, border agents feared losing credit for apprehending aliens. But in El Paso auto thefts were down 30%, burglaries and robberies were down, beggars were absent from the streets, fewer Mexicans were having babies in El Paso hospitals; the move was almost universally popular north of the border and has been accepted to the south. The law finally was being enforced by an agency that had long said it was impossible; he reduced the flow by more than half.

By November 1995 Reyes's name recognition was 65%, higher than most elected officials; he resigned from the INS and ran for Congress. Reyes talked of the need for integrity and common sense. His target was Ron Coleman, a Democrat first elected in 1982, around whom scandals lurked: he had 673 overdrafts at the House bank and he was accused by Texas Attorney General Dan Morales of trying to block prosecution of a local developer. In December 1995, Coleman announced he was retiring, but he and labor unions backed Jose Luis Sanchez, his legislative assistant. Sanchez harshly attacked Reyes as a crypto-Republican and for backing a capital gains tax cut. Reyes hewed to his moderate platform, including water conservation research, more high-tech jobs, more highways and border crossings. After Reyes led the primary 42%-28%, Sanchez and the unions pressed hard in the runoff, but Reyes won 51%-49% and easily won the general.

In the House, Reyes' voting record fell among moderates in the Democratic Caucus. He said that the permanent solution for the border is economic stabilization for Mexico and spoke out against decertification of Mexico for its drug enforcement record, saying it would upset the Mexican economy. He backed retraining for workers displaced by NAFTA, which he said has been a great success overall. He backed PNTR with China, but he opposed trade promotion authority. From the Armed Services Committee, where he is ranking Democrat on the Strategic Forces Subcommittee, Reyes has worked to protect Fort Bliss from possible base closing. On the Intelligence Committee, he blamed flaws in U.S. intelligence for the September 11 attacks and said that he saw no evidence of a link between Iraq and al Qaeda terrorists; he opposed the use of force in Iraq.

In 2001, he became chairman of the Hispanic Caucus, and set as a major priority the expansion of its membership by recruiting and providing financial help to prospective candidates; he set a goal of electing an additional six to 10 Hispanics to Congress in the 2002 election. But redistricting did not result in many new Hispanic-majority seats as Anglo and black Democrats concentrated on protecting incumbents in California and Florida, and only three new Hispanics were elected, two Democrats in California and Arizona and one Republican in Florida. Reyes urged the four Hispanic Republicans--three Cuban-Americans from Miami-Dade County and Henry Bonilla from San Antonio--to return to the Hispanic Caucus, but they demanded that the Caucus support free elections in Cuba; it is not clear why Hispanic Democrats, who have called for and supported free elections elsewhere in Latin America, found this unacceptable. Reyes briefly considered running for the Senate in 2002 after Phil Gramm retired, but decided not to. He was unopposed for reelection in 2002.

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DC Office
1527 LHOB 20515, 202-225-4831; Fax: 202-225-2016; Web site: www.house.gov/reyes

State Offices
El Paso, 915-534-4400.

Committees

• Armed Services (8th of 29 D): Readiness; Strategic Forces (RMM).
• Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (3d of 9 D): Human Intelligence, Analysis & Counterintelligence; Terrorism & Homeland Security.
• Veterans' Affairs (9th of 14 D): Benefits.

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	CON	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2002	75	64	100	50	43	38	15	39	19	0	17
2001	90	--	100	57	--	--	13	43	30	--	--

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2001 LIB	--	2001 CONS		2002 LIB	--	2002 CONS
Economic	70%	--	31%		65%	--	34%
Social	68%	--	33%		60%	--	39%
Foreign	29%	--	72%		64%	--	36%
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 N 5. Faith-Based Charities N 6. Bar Gays in the Boy Scouts N		7. Ban Partial-Birth Abortion Y  8. Arm Commercial Pilots Y  9. Trade Promotion Authority N 10. Bar Funds for Intl. Court * 11. Authorize Force in Iraq N 12. Deny Home. Sec. Dept. Union N

Election Results (More Info)
	Candidate	Total Votes	Percent	Expenditures
2002 general	Silvestre Reyes (D)	unopposed
2002 primary	Silvestre Reyes (D)	unopposed
2000 general	Silvestre Reyes (D)	92,649	68%	$406,530
	Daniel S. Power (R)	40,921	30%	$30,621
	Other	2,080	2%
Prior winning percentages: 1998 (88%); 1996 (71%)

2000 presidential
	Gore (D)	81,860	59%
	Bush (R)	56,276	41%
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 + 9
• District Size: 582 square miles
• Population in 2000: 651,619; 98.3% urban; 1.7% rural
• Median Household Income: $31,245; 23.6% are below the poverty line
• Occupation: 24.7% blue collar; 58.1% white collar; 17.2% gray collar; 11.6% military veterans
• Race/Ethnic Origin: 17.4% White, 2.9% Black, 0.9% Asian, 0.3% Amer. Indian, 0.1% Hawaiian, 0.7% Two+ races, 0.1% Other, 77.7% Hispanic origin
• Ancestry: 3.9% German, 2.6% Irish, 2.4% USA
• Click here for statewide demographic data.