Acevedo Vilá, Aníbal, 1962-

Aníbal Salvador Acevedo Vilá (born 13 February 1962) is a Puerto Rican politician and lawyer. He notably served as Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico from 2001 to 2005 and Governor of Puerto Rico from 2005 to 2009.

Born in Hato Rey, Puerto Rico, a district of San Juan, he attended Colegio San José High School in the same municipality. In 1982, he obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Government at the University of Puerto Rico at Rio Piedras. He continued his studies in Law at that campus' University of Puerto Rico Law School, the preeminent law school of Puerto Rico and the Caribbean, from which he obtained his Juris Doctor in 1985, graduating magna cum laude. After passing the Puerto Rico bar exam, Acevedo Vilá completed a year-long clerkship at the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico, where he worked under associate Justice Federico Hernández Denton. In 1987, he obtained a LL.M. degree from Harvard University. From 1987 to 1988, he served as law clerk for the Hon. Levin Hicks Campbell, Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston, Massachusetts.

Acevedo Vilá began his political career in 1989 as Legislative Affairs Advisor to Governor Rafael Hernández Colón. Shortly after, he became Director of the Legislative Affairs Office of La Fortaleza. In 1992, Acevedo Vilá was elected Representative At-Large to the Puerto Rico's House of Representatives. In 1997, the Popular Democratic Party was elected him Minority Leader of the House. To continue his ascension in the Party ranks, in February 1997, Acevedo Vilá ran for President of the Popular Democratic Party against veteran Eudaldo Báez Galib, and won 180–124. In 1999, he won the PPD primary to challenge Carlos Romero Barceló, the incumbent Resident Commissioner. Despite early polls that showed him trailing Romero-Barceló, Acevedo- Vilá eventually pulled ahead with a 49.3 percent plurality, besting the incumbent by about 4 percent.

Acevedo-Vilá was sworn in as the 18th Resident Commissioner from Puerto Rico on January 3, 2001. He caucused with the Democrats and was selected by his first-term peers to serve as their vice president. Like those of his predecessors, Acevedo-Vilá’s committee assignments gave him a voice in economic and territorial issues before Congress. He served on the Agriculture, Resources, and Small Business Committees and also joined the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, where he chaired the Livable Communities Task Force. Midway through his four-year term, Acevedo-Vilá announced he would not seek re-election to the House. Opting instead to run for governor of Puerto Rico, he won the PPD’s nomination and prevailed in the general election in fall 2004 by a razor-thin margin.

In 2008 Resident Commissioner Luis Fortuño of the Partido Nuevo Progresista challenged Acevedo-Vilá in the gubernatorial election. From the start, Acevedo-Vilá’s re-election prospects were weakened by the controversial race four years earlier, the government shutdown, and the resulting financial difficulties. Worse, federal authorities indicted him on multiple counts of fraud, along with a handful of other charges, in what the New York Times described as “an elaborate scheme to pay off more than $500,000 in campaign debts” dating to his time as Resident Commissioner. Acevedo-Vilá lost the gubernatorial election that fall. He was eventually acquitted of all the charges. Since 2009, he has served as the chief executive officer of the Optim Group.