Background and career
Robert Francis "Beto" O'Rourke ( BEH-toh; born September 26, 1972) is an American politician who served as the U.S. representative for Texas's 16th congressional district from 2013 to 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, O'Rourke was the party's nominee for the U.S. Senate in 2018, a candidate for the presidential nomination in 2020, and the party's nominee for the 2022 Texas gubernatorial election. O'Rourke was born into a local political family in El Paso, Texas, and is a graduate of Woodberry Forest School and Columbia University. While studying at Columbia, he began a brief music career as bass guitarist in the post-hardcore band Foss. After his college graduation, he returned to El Paso and began a business career. In 2005, he was elected to the El Paso City Council, serving until 2011; he served as mayor pro tempore during his first year in office. O'Rourke was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2012 after defeating eight-term incumbent Democrat Silvestre Reyes in the primary. After being re-elected to the House in 2014 and 2016, O'Rourke declined to seek another term in 2018. Instead, he sought the U.S. Senate seat held by Republican Ted Cruz, running a competitive campaign that drew national attention. Despite losing the election to Cruz by a margin of 2.6%, O'Rourke set a record for most votes ever cast for a Democrat in an election in Texas. On March 14, 2019, O'Rourke announced his candidacy in the 2020 United States presidential election. He suspended his campaign on November 1, 2019, due to a lack of traction and financial issues. He later endorsed Joe Biden on the same day as Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg. On March 1, 2022, O'Rourke won the Democratic nomination for the Texas gubernatorial election. He was defeated by Republican incumbent Greg Abbott in the election.
Robert Francis O'Rourke was born on September 26, 1972, at the Hotel Dieu Hospital in El Paso, Texas, to Pat O'Rourke and Melissa Martha O'Rourke. He is a fourth-generation Irish American. In his infancy, his family gave him the nickname "Beto" initially to distinguish him from his namesake grandfather. Pat O'Rourke served in public office in El Paso as County Commissioner and County Judge; he was an associate of Texas governor Mark White, served as the state chairman of Jesse Jackson's 1984 and 1988 presidential campaigns, switched parties in the early 1990s, and made several failed attempts to win election to public office as a Republican. Jesse Jackson conducted a press conference on December 11, 1984, in the den of O'Rourke's boyhood home in Kern Place. In eighth grade, O'Rourke was introduced to punk rock through the Clash's London Calling (1979), an album he later called "a revelation". By the time he was 14 or 15 years old, he started going to local punk shows. He soon discovered Dischord Records, a Washington, D.C.–based independent label with a catalog of punk music, and began reading punk zines like Maximumrocknroll and Flipside. O'Rourke felt alienated from the City of El Paso as an adolescent in the 1980s. He told The Texas Observer that, in the El Paso of his youth, "There was nothing dangerous. There was no energy. There was no risk." El Paso's punk scene, though small, helped O'Rourke find a sense of community in the city. As a teenager, O'Rourke was a member of the computer hacker group Cult of the Dead Cow, named after a shut-down Lubbock slaughterhouse. The group "is notorious for releasing tools that allowed ordinary people to hack computers running Microsoft's Windows". At O'Rourke's insistence, the group included female members, making it one of the few groups of that era to do so. O'Rourke has admitted that he stole long-distance phone service during his teen years in order to use his dial-up modem. O'Rourke wrote numerous poems and other texts for Cult of the Dead Cow under the pseudonym "Psychedelic Warlord", a name taken from a 1974 rock song by the band Hawkwind. O'Rourke has expressed regret over some fictional short stories he wrote as a teenager for the cDc private online forum which included sexual and violent themes. O'Rourke began his education at Escuela Montessori Del Valle preschool and continued to Rivera and Mesita Elementary Schools. In 1988, after two years at El Paso High School, he enrolled in Woodberry Forest School, an all-male boarding school in Madison County, Virginia. O'Rourke attended Columbia University, where in his junior year he co-captained Columbia's heavyweight rowing crew. He graduated in 1995 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature. He is fluently bilingual in English and Spanish. After graduation, O'Rourke worked as a live-in caretaker and art mover before working for an Internet service provider run by his uncle. He later took a position at H. W. Wilson Company as a proofreader, and wrote short stories and songs in his free time. O'Rourke returned to El Paso in 1998. At first, he was working with computers as an inventory tracker at his mother's upscale furniture store and living in an apartment building owned by his father. O'Rourke said he wanted to address "brain-drain", or the exodus of youth caused by lack of opportunity. In 2000, he co-founded Stanton Street Technology Group, an Internet services and software company. With O'Rourke himself unable to obtain a loan, his father took out a $20,000 loan on his behalf. O'Rourke's wife, Amy, operated the business until June 2017. For a few years, the company also published an online newspaper, also called Stanton Street; the paper was a mix of arts and entertainment reviews, restaurant reviews and opinion columns that O'Rourke modeled on alternative periodicals like The Village Voice and New York Press. The company made a co-marketing agreement with local TV station, KTSM-TV, allowing StantonStreet.Com and the station's Internet site to share content and TV ads. KTSM's then news director, Eric Pearson, was O'Rourke's brother-in-law. During his childhood, O'Rourke accompanied his father Pat at campaign stops and other political events. While Pat was charismatic and outgoing, his son was more reserved. Pat would nudge Beto, suggesting he introduce himself to someone. O'Rourke recalled, "I was an awkward and shy kid, so it was the last thing I wanted to do, but now I can look back and bless my experience in it." "Interestingly, his father was involved politically in El Paso growing up, and Beto would go to events...but I never saw Beto engaged with that arena," his mother recalled. O'Rourke cites his work on his magazine, not boyhood exposure to politics, as the reason behind his initial political ideas and ambitions.
O'Rourke had a brief career in music during his college years. He joined his first band, called Swipe, after he left El Paso to attend Columbia University in New York. Swipe played shows at bars and clubs in New York and once opened for the Olympia, Washington–based punk band Fitz of Depression. After being introduced to Bad Brains as a teen, O'Rourke became a fan of punk music. O'Rourke and two friends from El Paso, Mike Stevens and Arlo Klahr, learned to play musical instruments; O'Rourke took up the bass. In 1991, while at Columbia University, the trio recruited drummer Cedric Bixler-Zavala (eventual vocalist for At the Drive-In and The Mars Volta), and together they formed the band Foss. During the summer, they toured the United States and Canada, garnering the support of Feist. The group released a self-titled demo and a 7-inch record, "The El Paso Pussycats", on Western Breed Records in 1993. O'Rourke also played drums in the band Swedes, who released an album called Summer in 1995. O'Rourke and ex-members of Foss later started two other bands, a rock group called Fragile Gang and a cover band called The Sheeps. The DIY ethos O'Rourke had first encountered in the punk scene informed some of his later political decisions, such as his Senate campaign's pledge not to accept financial contributions from PACs (political action committees).
In mid-2005, O'Rourke ran for the El Paso City Council on a platform of downtown development and border reform. O'Rourke was inspired by the successful 2001 mayoral run of Ray Caballero, whose platform promoted the idea that El Paso was great. When Caballero failed to get re-elected, O'Rourke considered running for office. O'Rourke was involved with El Paso civic organizations and nonprofit groups, such as the Rotary Club, United Way, and Center Against Sexual and Family Violence. He was a member of the boards of the El Paso Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and the Institute for Policy and Economic Development at UTEP. O'Rourke defeated two-term incumbent city councilman Anthony Cobos, 57–43%. Byrd and Ortega were also elected; along with O'Rourke, they came to be referred to as "the Progressives". O'Rourke is one of the youngest representatives ever to have served on the City Council. In 2007, he won re-election to a second term, defeating Trini Acevedo, 70–30%. On June 14, 2005, at his first city council meeting, O'Rourke was chosen as mayor pro tem by unanimous vote. The mayor pro tem represents the city at meetings and ceremonial occasions when the mayor is unavailable, presides over City Council in the mayor's absence, appoints council members to legislative review committees and generally works in concert with the mayor in a leadership capacity. On June 20, 2006, he relinquished the position, saying, "I said I would take it on condition that someone else would it in a year. ... I hope it becomes a new tradition that every year, a new mayor pro tem is elected." O'Rourke was a supporter of a redevelopment plan for a depressed area of El Paso's business district with a high vacancy rate, which was also supported by Mayor John Cook and fellow city councilwoman Susie Byrd. The initiative faced opposition from a small group of small businesses and Chicano activists who expressed concern about gentrification and the potential use of eminent domain. O'Rourke responded with an on-foot campaign to residents of the neighborhood and was met with support as well as some cynicism. An activist initiated a recall campaign against O'Rourke (which O'Rourke won), and a few downtown property owners filed two ethics complaints against him; the complaints were dismissed as unfounded. Ultimately, owing to the start of the Great Recession in the United States, the redevelopment plans were only partially realized. In January 2009, O'Rourke sponsored a resolution calling for "comprehensive examination" of the war on drugs and "the repeal of ineffective marijuana laws". The resolution, unanimously supported by his colleagues on the El Paso City Council, was vetoed by Mayor John Cook. O'Rourke told reporters the reason he spoke up about the war on drugs was the thousands of people who had been killed in the nearby city of Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. He said, "I hope it has all had its intended effect of starting the national discussion of the wisdom of the War on Drugs...and probably more importantly, helping to bring about a better solution than the status quo, which has led to the terror and tragedy in Juarez."
In 2012, O'Rourke filed for the Democratic primary against the eight-term Silvestre Reyes to represent Texas's 16th congressional district. The primary was seen as the real contest in the heavily Democratic, Latino-majority district. Byrd ran O'Rourke's field operation and Escobar was head of communication. O'Rourke won 50.5 percent of the vote, just a few hundred votes above the threshold required to avoid a runoff against Reyes. He was contrasted with Reyes in his support for LGBT rights and drug liberalization. His campaign was largely on foot, and he reportedly knocked on 16,000 doors. He defeated his Republican opponent, Barbara Carrasco, in the general election with 65 percent of the vote. Upon O'Rourke's election, the district was no longer represented in the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, a 26-member group established in 1976, because he lacks Hispanic heritage. As the district was 80 percent Hispanic, with 77.6 percent of Hispanics being of voting-age, some officials, including David Austin, the El Paso–based border representative for the U.S./Mexico Border Counties Coalition, argued that he should be permitted to join. For his part, O'Rourke said he respected the caucus's bylaws.
During his bid for re-election in the fall of 2014, O'Rourke donated at least $28,000 from his own campaign funds to fellow Democratic candidates for House seats. O'Rourke was re-elected in 2014 with 67 percent of the vote.
