Candidate Profile: Mary Gonzalez - HD 75

She hasn't officially announced and most of you probably don't know who she is yet, but if she runs you will learn the name.

Mary Gonzalez is the candidate who has been shopped around Austin by Annie's List, which is a progressive group focused on women's issues and specifically empowering women to run for elective office.

So here's a quick summary. Gonzalez is from the valley and attended Loretto for elementary school and later Clint High School. She's got a very powerful back story and comes from a humble background in the valley. She received her Bachelor Degrees in History and Mexican American Studies from the University of Texas at Austin. In 2009, she received her Master of Liberal Arts with a concentration in Social Justice from St.Edward's University.


During the early part of her career, she worked for Representatives Paul Moreno and Richard Raymond. She was also Assistant Director in the Office of Research and Demonstration at the National Hispanic Institute and as Program Coordinator in the Multicultural Engagement Center at The University of Texas at Austin. Yes, she's an NHI'er.


More recently, Gonzalez was the Assistant Dean for Student Multicultural Affairs at  Southwestern University.  She is now an adjunct professor at Southwestern University and a Graduate Research Assistant at the University of Texas at Austin, where she develops curriculum for the UT Outreach Centers in San Antonio and the Rio Grande Valley.


Aside from the extensive educational background (6 classes away from a PhD and she's only 28 years old), she is also an activist. Gonzalez is also Co-Chair of the Board of Directors for allgo, Texas' state-wide Queer People of Color organization and is currently leading their board development and organization assessment efforts. 


She has also done some work for the Joaquin Castro for Congress Campaign.

Gonzalez has been a speaker on issues of race, gender, sexual identity and coalition building, presenting at conferences including the National Council of La Raza, The National Lesbian and Gay Task Force- Creating Change Conference and the Latino Leadership Summit. 

She has been recognized by mylatinovoice.com as the "Hot 25 under 25" most influential young Latinos in the country and in Latino Leaders Magazine for her leadership in education. Recently, the National Association of Latino Fraternal Organizations awarded her 2010 Rising Professional and 2011 Organizational Leadership Excellence.

As she says, "I'm as Clint as you can get...big hoop earings and all." She's proud of her roots in the district and has a compelling story. She grew up on a ranch in the rural part of the district and with her educational background, she's exactly what we tell our daughters we want them to be one day.

Coffee Talk

She contacted me late last week and we set up time to interview at an Eastside coffee shop. First impression is that she is obviously smart. Not just book smart, but dialed in. After some talk about her background I started asking her some questions about policy.

The only other candidate that I have had a chance to talk about policy with so far in that race is Hector Enriquez. The difference is night and day. Enriquez didn't know much about anything in terms of policy. Gonzalez is up-to-speed on a lot of policy. Not just the superficial stuff you read in the paper, but the deeper knowledge you only get from doing your homework or being involved in the process. Since she's worked for legislators she understands policy.

If she ever gets on a stage with Enriquez, she's going to hand him a policy beat-down. Although that would hardly be a fair fight.

She identified infrastructure as one of the main issues facing the district. Again, light years ahead of Enriquez who I'm sure is a nice guy and all, but he doesn't appear to have even a passing understanding of policy. Or at least he didn't back when he announced. 

She's pretty self-aware too. She understands that there are some things that will make her candidacy more complicated but she seems okay with that and ready to deal with it along the way.

Her Chances

She looks really strong against Enriquez, or Willie Gandara if he decides to get in the race. She'd be the only Latina in the race and neither Enriquez nor Gandara are policy wonks. 

But she has some hurdles to deal with. 

#1 - She doesn't live in El Paso. She lives in Austin. As in 576 miles and 9 hours 36 minutes away, Austin, Texas. 

#2 - She hasn't lived in El Paso for a decade and she's only 28. That means she hasn't lived in El Paso during her adult life. 

#3 - Money, money, money. She's probably gonna get funding from Annie's List, but I doubt they will bank roll an entire race like the TLR does. 

#4 - Art Fierro. This race is going to come down to who people dislike the least. Art is a nice guy. People like him. But more importantly he is an elected official, his name has been on a ballot before, he has run other people's campaign, printing literature and signs won't be a problem (and that is HUGE), and he can fund raise. He also happens to be astute on policy and has dealt with big budgets. 

#5 - Zero name ID. No one knows her. Which brings me to the last hurdle

#6 - Time is short. She hasn't made up her mind if she is running or not (I'm betting she will) and we are not that far away from early voting. That doesn't give her a lot of time to introduce herself to voters and then convince them she's the best candidate for the job.

Fierro is clearly the front-runner and he will be in a run-off. Stevie Wonder can see that.

The question is, who else will be in the run off with him?

The good thing is that with Gonzalez and Fierro in the race, the talent pool just got deeper in HD 75. And the lower valley will benefit from that.