Mayor of san antonio biography

Elise Hu was a political reporter at the Tribune, focusing on multimedia projects, from 2009 to 2011.

She previously worked as the state political reporter for Austin's ABC affiliate, KVUE-TV, from 2006... "I've determined that it simply isn't our time," he said in a video released by his campaign, adding, "I'll keep working towards a nation where everyone counts, a nation where everyone can get a good job, good health care and a decent place to live."

Twin

Julián's identical twin brother is Congressman Joaquin Castro, who's been representing the 20th congressional district of Texas since 2013.

In 2021, she was appointed Under Secretary of the U.S. Air Force, becoming the first woman of color and first out lesbian to hold that role, confirmed unanimously by the U.S. Senate.

From Congressional Candidate to City Hall

After two closely contested runs for U.S. Congress in Texas’ 23rd district (2018 and 2020), Ortiz Jones returned to San Antonio and entered the 2025 mayoral race.

He was re-elected twice.

Castro's political star was rising not only in Texas but nationally. Joaquin served as his brother's presidential campaign chair.

Wife and Family

Castro married school teacher Erica Lira in 2007. A vocal opponent of President Donald Trump's border wall expansion, Castro had one of the most viral moments at the June 2019 Democratic presidential debates, when, in his closing statement, he ended with: "On Jan.

20, 2021, we'll say adios to Donald Trump."

Education

Castro wanted to institute a comprehensive education program starting with universal pre-K. Your plan would not."

Immigration

Castro aimed to grant undocumented immigrants a pathway to citizenship, reconstitute ICE and border patrol agencies and decriminalize illegal border crossings.

"He wanted every single person in this country covered. He was among the candidates for the Democratic nomination in the 2020 presidential race.

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• Article Title: Julián Castro Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/political-figures/julian-castro
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
• Last Updated: January 2, 2020
• Original Published Date: November 18, 2019

Gina Ortiz Jones was elected mayor of San Antonio in a runoff election on June 7.

Ortiz Jones has committed to a transparent 100-day review of city spending and operations.

A National Milestone for Representation

Ortiz Jones is now the highest-profile Filipina elected official in Texas and becomes the first openly gay mayor of a major U.S. city in the South. “What we did is we just laid everything out for everybody to look at and consider.”

A vision built from personal experience

Jones, whose family grew up leaning on housing vouchers and other forms of government support, crafted a campaign around protecting San Antonio’s most vulnerable residents — particularly in times of political uncertainty at the state and federal levels.

She was one of the most vocal critics of the city’s plans for a roughly $4 billion downtown development project and NBA arena for the San Antonio Spurs known as Project Marvel early in the race, saying she instead wanted to focus city resources on expanded Pre-K programs, workforce development and affordable housing.

It was a major contrast to Pablos, a former San Antonio Hispanic Chamber chair, who vowed to focus on bringing major corporations to San Antonio, and led even some left-leaning members of the business community to view her with uncertainty.

A surprising number of progressive elected officials either stayed out of the runoff entirely or publicly backed Pablos.

Jones seemed undeterred by that dynamic, saying often on the campaign trail that her own approach was rooted in personal experience with leaders who only listen to the privileged few.

She joined the military under Don’t Ask Don’t Tell more than two decades ago at Boston University, and will now be the city’s first mayor from the LGBTQ community.

“That experience [of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell] showed me the importance of when you are in leadership, always having the humility to ask, ‘Who am I not hearing from?

The victory was historic, as Jones is not only San Antonio’s first out LGBTQ mayor but the first Asian-American female mayor of a major city in Texas and the first female mayor in Texas to have served in a war.

(She’s a former Air Force officer and Iraq War veteran who previously served as Under Secretary of the Air Force during the Biden administration.)

Jones is also the first mayor since 2005 to not have previously served on the city council and will serve a four-year term.

The race was watched closely by political operatives who saw the potential for the GOP to gain control of the mayor’s office for the first time in more than 20 years, citing Donald Trump’s electoral gains in last year’s presidential election, particularly among the city’s Hispanic residents.

Jones defeated former Texas Secretary of State Rolando Pablos, a Republican closely aligned with anti -LGBTQ Gov.

Greg Abbott, by a margin of 54.3% to 45.7%. Her win is the narrowest margin of victory by a winning candidate since the 2019 mayoral race.

According to The New York Times, at one point during the campaign, Pablos accused Jones of appropriating the last name Ortiz to appeal to Latino voters, when in fact many Filipinos have Spanish surnames and middle names due to Spain’s colonization of the nation.

She rejected the accusation as “racist” and expressed pride in her cultural identity.

Jones, the daughter of a single mother who immigrated from the Philippines, focused her campaign on expanding early childhood education, increasing job opportunities for unskilled workers, and addressing the city’s housing affordability crisis.

“They are the ones that are coming in and flooding money into these races … and we have to stand on the front lines of that.”

Third time’s a charm

For Jones, who most recently served as Air Force Under Secretary in the Biden administration, this is the third high-profile race Democratic interests have expected her to win.

She came close in 2018 in Texas’ 23rd Congressional District, losing by roughly 1,000 votes to Republican Will Hurd, then lost by a larger margin in the same district two years later to U.S.

Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-San Antonio.

Both were multimillion-dollar, top-tier races in the battle for the U.S. House, and the losses stung so much that Jones chose to watch last month’s election results in private — even though she’d led every public poll leading up to it.

At her watch party on Saturday night, Jones was joined by the iconic local activist Rosie Castro and former Mayor Julián Castro, as well as representatives from an array of outside groups that helped her in the race: Texas Organizing Project, Vote Vets, and labor unions, to name a few.

Underscoring the growing progressive influence at City Hall, Councilmembers Jalen McKee-Rodriguez (D2), Phyllis Viagran (D3), Edward Mungia (D4) and Teri Castillo (D5) also attended.

Another new progressive, 24-year-old Ric Galvan, was celebrating a narrow victory for District 6 on the city’s West Side.

The Democratic National Committee, Texas Democratic Party and Democratic Mayors Association all put out statements congratulating Jones.

“With her win in a heavily-Latino city, Mayor-elect Jones will continue the legacy of Mayor Nirenberg and move San Antonio forward,” Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin said in a statement.

Hailing from a politically active Mexican family, Castro has an identical twin brother, Joaquin, who serves in the U.S. House of Representatives for the state of Texas.

Early Life and Education

Castro was born on September 16, 1974, in San Antonio, Texas, one minute before his twin brother, Joaquin.

After graduating, the twins worked at the same law firm together before establishing their own in 2005.

Career in Politics

Castro began his political career in 2001 when he became a member of the San Antonio City Council, making history as the youngest council member at age 26.

Julián Castro