Rep. Henry Bonilla (R) Elected 1992, 7th term
Born:	Jan. 2, 1954, San Antonio
Home:	San Antonio
Education:	U. of TX, B.A. 1976
Religion:	Baptist
Marital Status:	married (Sheryl Shelby)
Professional Career:	TV Reporter, 1976-80; Asst. Press Secy., PA Gov. Thornburgh, 1981; Writer/producer, WABC, New York, 1982-85; Asst. News Dir., WATF-TV, Philadelphia, 1985-86; KENS-TV, San Antonio, Exec. News Producer, 1986-89, Public Affairs, 1989-92.
DC Office	2458 RHOB20515, 202-225-4511; Fax: 202-225-2237; Web site: www.house.gov/bonilla
State Offices	Alpine, 915-837-1313; Del Rio, 830-774-6547; Laredo, 956-726-4682; San Antonio, 210-697-9055.
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The Census Bureau declared in 1890 that the American frontier was closed, but there still is a frontier of sorts in Texas. You can see it just northwest of San Antonio, where the Balcones Escarpment rises, a stony ridge that separates flat coastal Texas from the hills and plains of the west. From the top of the ridge you can see most of San Antonio spread out before you on gently rolling turf, the downtown skyscrapers near the Alamo in the distance. Metro San Antonio has now spread up on the ridge and past, with attendant controversy; proposals to build a Wal-Mart Supercenter stirred fears about depletion of the Edwards Aquifer Recharge Zone. To the north and west is the Texas Hill Country. This is the site of some of the oldest Texas German communities, established by immigrants who fled after the failure of the democratic revolutions of 1848. The Texas German country has always been a set of orderly communities in rip-roaring Texas, economically prosperous in a state that considered itself poor until it struck oil. It was anti-slavery and politically Republican in a state whose enthusiasm for the Democratic Party had roots in Confederate loyalties and populist rebellions. Today the Hill Country has new settlers, young families with high incomes seeking homesites in spacious new subdivisions and older retirees who revel in the Hill Country's scenery and its moderate weather; when it's suffocatingly hot in San Antonio it's pleasantly warm in the hills.

Fifty or so miles west of San Antonio, the hills flatten out and become the parched uplands of West Texas. This is a borderland, just north of Mexico, where people are concentrated in tiny hamlets amid the empty ranchlands and most residents are Latino. Once Indians were the threat on this frontier; now the challenge is assimilation and the threat is lack of water. The aquifers of West Texas are being drained; state law allows landowners to pump out as much water as they want. The Rio Grande, dried out by a dam in New Mexico, gets most of its water from the Rio Conchos in the Mexican state of Chihuahua; Mexico owes the United States hundreds of thousands of acre-feet under a 1944 treaty. Big cities have sprung up on the border. But in the hundreds of miles between El Paso and Juarez, Chihuahua (which between them have about 2 million people), and Laredo and Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas (which between them have about 800,000), there are only a few border crossings and much wilderness. The mountains of Big Bend National Park rise above the Rio Grande, where in the clean air you can find dozens of species of birds and can see for 180 miles; eccentrics have built an art colony in Marfa and stage a chili cookoff in Terlingua. El Paso/Juarez and Laredo/Nuevo Laredo are engines of commerce. Juarez has the largest concentration of maquiladoras in Mexico, and Laredo is the biggest freight crossing point on the U.S.-Mexico border, with $160 billion in goods crossing the crowded bridge downtown or the new higher bridge built several miles upriver. Laredo has more warehouse space than San Antonio and Austin combined; its downtown streets and shopping malls are crowded with Mexicans coming over to buy goods at low prices. Some fear that this part of the United States will become Mexicanized. In the late 1970s young Latinos organized the La Raza Unida party and took over local government in Dimmit County. But separatism had a short shelf life. Mexico in the last dozen years has been struggling to become more like the United States, and Texas Latinos have joined the mainstream of American politics. Texas's frontier in many ways is thriving. But all this activity makes people thirsty. Private companies are buying ranchland so they can pump water out to Texas's growing cities, and some Texans are even talking about building a pipeline from Hoover Dam in Nevada.

The 23d Congressional District of Texas is geographically the largest in the state, larger than almost any state east of the Mississippi. It stretches from San Antonio to the outskirts of El Paso, from Laredo to the New Mexico border. It includes the northwest suburbs of San Antonio and part of the city, most of the Hill Country centered on Kerrville, the northern and western half of Laredo, the eastern edge of El Paso County and all the mostly empty and parched land in between. Most of the population is clustered in a few areas--30% in San Antonio's Bexar County, 14% in Laredo, 7% each are in and around the border towns Del Rio and Eagle Pass. Politically, there are wide differences within the district. Most of the border counties are Democratic; the Bexar County portion of the district is affluent and heavily Republican, as are the ranching counties with low Hispanic populations are also Republican. The 2003 redistricting removed half of Laredo and added Hill Country counties. The result was that this 55% Hispanic district voted 64% for George W. Bush in 2000 and 65% in 2004.

The congressman from the 23d District is Henry Bonilla, a Republican first elected in 1992. He was raised in a Latino neighborhood on the south side of San Antonio. His grandmother worked as a maid, and his father held down two jobs. Bonilla graduated from the University of Texas and then worked as a TV reporter, producer and executive in San Antonio, New York, Philadelphia and, starting in 1986, San Antonio again. In 1991, Bexar County Republican leaders recruited Bonilla to run for Congress against incumbent Democrat Albert Bustamante; he reportedly was being investigated by the FBI, had 30 overdrafts on the House bank and, after the election, was convicted of two counts of misuse of office for racketeering and bribery. Bonilla backed standard conservative planks but developed his own issues as well. Bustamante called Bonilla "a eunuch for the plantation owners" for opposing a minimum wage bill, but Bonilla won 59%-38%.

In 1993 Republicans gave Bonilla a seat on Appropriations, the first time a freshman had won one in 25 years. There he has displayed a talent for placing deregulatory riders on appropriations bills--to eliminate funding for enforcing a rule on cardboard balers and to block the Labor Department from developing ergonomic standards. Bonilla voted enthusiastically for NAFTA and against gun control. He and Solomon Ortiz of the 27th District have been co-chairmen of the Border Caucus since 1997, and have worked successfully to get Mexico to abandon deposits on cars brought from the U.S., to withdraw tax proposals which would affect U.S. companies operating maquiladoras; they have sought equality in duty-free rules and reversal of a decision not to allow commuter students to attend U.S. colleges and universities. Bonilla has refused to join the all-Democratic Hispanic Caucus, lamenting that it lacks a bipartisan agenda and was a founder of the all-Republican Congressional Hispanic Caucus. He criticized a National Council of La Raza survey report. "All too often Hispanics are portrayed as victims, cowering in the neighborhoods, waiting for the federal government to rescue them. This is simply not the case," he wrote in July 2001. "There is a booming Hispanic middle class, with good prospects for future growth. Average Latino income has almost doubled in the past decade, and the amount of Latinos with a college education has risen almost 50%. … I don't know about the people who represent these 'professional minority' groups, but when I look in the mirror every morning I first see an American. I'm proud of my culture, but more proud and grateful to say I live in this country."

In January 2001 he became chairman of the Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee, one of the "college of cardinals." As an appropriator, Bonilla was hostile to the Republican leadership's attempt to confine the committee to the administration's total for discretionary spending. He has earmarked money for district projects and he made sure to keep in money for a rail spur from San Antonio to the site of the newly announced Toyota plant. He serves on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee and announced in September 2002 that San Antonio's Fort Sam Houston was chosen as the new home of the U.S. Army South. In March 2003 he announced a $16 million Colonias Gateway Initiative, a nonprofit entity to coordinate aid to colonias. In June 2003 he sponsored the successful amendment to delay country of origin meat labeling until 2006; in 2004 he tried unsuccessfully to make country of origin labeling voluntary.

Redistricting in November 2001 did not change the district much, and he seemed to be on the way to easy reelection. Instead he had tough competition from Henry Cuellar, a state representative from Laredo from 1986 to 2000, who was appointed secretary of state by Governor Rick Perry in December 2000 and resigned in January 2002. Bonilla said that he didn't need Laredo to win; he had never won more than 49% of the vote in Laredo's Webb County. That didn't go over well with outgoing Webb County Republican Chairman Gene Belmares, who in January 2002 endorsed Cuellar. "If Henry Bonilla has said publicly that he does not need Laredo to win, and if he does not want to include us as Republicans, fine. I will support Henry Cuellar." It was clear that Laredo businessman Tony Sanchez's $60 million campaign for governor would produce a big increase in voter turnout in Webb County, and Democrats hoped that would make Cuellar competitive. Cuellar attacked Bonilla for his votes against funding the CHIP program, passage of the Family and Medical Leave Act, funding Pell grants, student loans, work study and classroom construction. And he accused him of being insufficiently Hispanic. "He said he 'doesn't wake up in the morning thinking he's Hispanic.' I don't know what he means by that."

Bonilla had the money advantage, with $2.4 million to Cuellar's $1 million. For most of the campaign, this race was not on either national party's radar screen. Bonilla had, after all, never won less than 59% of the vote. But despite miscues--he ended up hiring three campaign managers--Cuellar came up with an effective strategy given his comparative lack of funds. He started off by flying around to all the small communities in the district. Then he conducted an extensive blockwalking campaign in San Antonio and elsewhere; by August he claimed that he and his teams had walked every street in the district except in Laredo. He spent much of the last two months concentrating on turning out the vote in Webb County and only in the last month ran television ads. In Laredo he was helped by the great local enthusiasm for Tony Sanchez; Cuellar carried the county 84%-15%. On election night, that seemed to make the difference. Cuellar's 26,000-vote margin in Webb County gave him a 15,000-vote lead as the evening went on. But in San Antonio Bexar County officials were having trouble with their vote scanning machines. The final Bexar County totals were not reported until Wednesday night, and Bonilla's 75%-24% lead there erased Cuellar's lead and showed a 6,000-vote, 52%-47% victory for Bonilla. Cuellar acknowledged the loss, but seemed as if he were interested in a rematch.

Bonilla supported Tom DeLay's drive to redistrict Texas's congressional seats in 2003, and was one of its beneficiaries. The redistricting plan removed half of troublesome Webb County from the district, added heavily Republican Hill Country counties and made the Bexar County part of the district more Republican. Cuellar decided to run in the 28th District and beat incumbent Ciro Rodriguez in the March 2004 primary. In the 23d District Bonilla won 69%-29%. He carried Bexar County 71%-28% and, in a huge turnaround from 2002, the Webb County portion of the district 58%-41%. He lost Zavala County and the district's portion of El Paso County but carried all the other counties, some of them 85% to 95% Hispanic. When House Republicans gathered after the election, he moved to change party rules so that members who were indicted were not required to relinquish leadership positions. This was obviously to help DeLay: three of his aides had been indicted on campaign finance charges by Austin District Attorney Ronnie Earle. Many Republicans believed that Earle, a liberal Democrat, was politically motivated; his indictment of Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison a decade before had been peremptorily dismissed on the first day in court. "This takes the power away from any partisan crackpot district attorney who may want to indict" party leaders, Bonilla said. Bonilla ended the year with $1.2 million in his campaign account and in early 2005 made moves to run for the Senate when it looked as if Hutchison would run for governor. In February 2005 he said, "If she makes the decision on her own to move on, then I am in that race, no ifs, ands or buts." But Hutchison announced in June that she would seek reelection to the Senate.

Committees

• Appropriations (11th of 37 R): Agriculture, Rural Development, FDA & Related Agencies (Chmn.); Defense.

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2004	0	0	13	9	100	48	100	92	65	76	--
2003	5	--	0	0	--	61	100	92	--	--	--

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2003 LIB	--	2003 CONS		2004 LIB	--	2004 CONS
Economic	29%	--	70%		29%	--	70%
Social	14%	--	85%		25%	--	73%
Foreign	30%	--	69%		10%	--	86%
For National Journal's complete 2004 Vote Ratings, as well as previous ratings dating back to 1995, please click here.

Key Votes Of The 108th Congress (More Info)
1. Drilling in ANWR Y 2. Approve Bush Tax Cuts * 3. Medicare/Rx Bill Y 4. Bar Overtime Pay Regs. N 5. DC School Vouchers Y 6. Ban Human Cloning Y		7. Restrict Gun Liability Y  8. Ban Partial-Birth Abortion Y  9. Ban Same-Sex Marriage Y 10. Fund Iraq War Y 11. Bar Cuba Embargo Funds N 12. Intelligence Reorg. Y

Election Results (More Info)
	Candidate	Total Votes	Percent	Expenditures
2004 general	Henry Bonilla (R)	170,716	69%	$1,211,717
	Joe Sullivan (D)	72,480	29%	$9,335
	Other	3,307	1%
2004 primary	Henry Bonilla (R)	unopposed
2002 general	Henry Bonilla (R)	77,573	52%	$2,413,172
	Henry Cuellar (D)	71,067	47%	$1,055,342
	Other	1,912	1%
Prior winning percentages: 2000 (59%); 1998 (64%); 1996 (62%); 1994 (63%); 1992 (59%)

2004 Presidential Vote Bush (R) 163,389 (65%) Kerry (D) 89,874 (35%)

2000 Presidential Vote Bush (R) 131,962 (64%) Gore (D) 75,363 (36%)

For 1992 and 1996 presidential results in the Twenty-Third 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: R +13
• District Size: 52,735 square miles
• Population in 2000: 651,620; 74.4% urban; 25.6% rural
• Median Household Income: $38,081; 18.4% are below the poverty line
• Occupation: 20.1% blue collar; 63.3% white collar; 16.6% gray collar; 12.9% military veterans
• Race/Ethnic Origin: 41.0% White, 1.6% Black, 1.1% Asian, 0.3% Amer. Indian, 0.0% Hawaiian, 0.8% Two+ races, 0.1% Other, 55.1% Hispanic origin
• Ancestry: 9.4% German, 5.7% English, 5.1% Irish
• Click here for statewide demographic data.