Bonilla, Henry, 1954-

<p>Born and raised in southwest Texas, Henry Bonilla left his career in television and ran for public office in 1992 after being inspired by then-Minority Whip Newt Gingrich. From his perch on the Appropriations Committee, where he eventually served as one of 13 powerful subcommittee chairmen, Bonilla championed deregulation and espoused fiscal conservatism. Portrayed as the GOP’s inroad into a primarily Democratic Hispanic electorate, Bonilla played down his ethnicity. “[When I] look in the mirror in the morning, I’m American first,” he noted.</p>

<p>The son of a civil service worker at Kelly Air Force Base, Henry Bonilla was born in San Antonio, Texas, on January 2, 1954. Bonilla was the oldest of three boys and two girls. He lived two blocks away from South San Antonio High School, from which he graduated in 1972. Bonilla admitted to being a lackluster student in a school rocked by teacher walkouts and a high dropout rate. “My school didn’t motivate me, but I watched a lot of TV and realized that there was a lot more to the world than what I experienced within the one-mile radius of where I lived,” he said. Coverage of President Richard M. Nixon’s trip to China in 1972 solidified Bonilla’s conservative beliefs. “I realized that all of the overarching ideals I had about politics—a belief in the free enterprise system, a strong defense, less government—did not have a thing in common with the Democratic Party,” he noted. “So I became a Republican.” An essay Bonilla wrote about Nixon’s China diplomacy won him a college scholarship. He earned his B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin in 1976 and then began a career in television news. Bonilla started as a reporter for two stations in Austin from 1976 to 1980 before moving to Philadelphia to serve as press secretary for Pennsylvania governor Dick Thornburgh for a year in 1981; this post would be his only experience in politics before he was elected to Congress. He stayed in the Northeast, working as a news producer for a flagship ABC station in New York City. In 1985 he returned to Philadelphia for a year to serve as an assistant news director for a local station, before becoming an executive producer for KENS-TV and settling in San Antonio in 1986. There he met his future wife, Deborah Knapp, a television anchor in a highly rated San Antonio news program. The couple had two children, Alicia and Austin.</p>

<p>In 1992, Bonilla cited Minority Whip Newt Gingrich of Georgia as his inspiration to run for a seat in the U.S. House. Supporting the conservative platforms espoused by the Georgia leader proved difficult in the overwhelmingly Democratic district, the birthplace of the La Raza Unida activist movement. Drawn after the 1990 Census as an “incumbency protection plan” for Democratic Congressman Albert Bustamante, the district covered 58,000 square miles across a wide swath of southwest Texas. A mix of Hispanic barrios (low-income neighborhoods) near Laredo—including eight of the 20 poorest counties in the state—and wealthy areas such as the San Antonio suburbs in Bexar County, El Paso desert, and Midland Oil Fields (home to affluent ranchers and oil industry executives) made up the district. With more than 60 percent of its population being of Mexican-American origin, the district was the largest in the Texas delegation—measuring roughly the size of Illinois—and shared a longer stretch of the Mexican border (800 miles) than any other congressional district. Bonilla immediately contrasted himself with Bustamante, who had more than 30 overdrafts in the House “Bank,” an informal institution run by the Sergeant at Arms in to which some Members deposited their congressional pay. Though Bustamante had few overdrafts compared with some of the worst offenders, Bonilla hit his opponent hard in an attempt to appeal to frugal working-class immigrants, using the term “cheques calientes” (hot checks) throughout his campaign and evoking gangster Al Capone. An untarnished political newcomer, Bonilla was attractive because of his personality and his skill as a news producer. “Blitzing” the district with well-crafted TV advertisements, Bonilla appealed to small business owners and conservative Democrats. He took a leave of absence from the TV station to drive across Southern Texas, meeting with voters and conversing in Spanish with locals in coffee shops and cafes.</p>

BONILLA, Henry, a Representative from Texas; born in San Antonio, Bexar County, Tex., January 2, 1954; graduated from South San Antonio High School, San Antonio, Tex., 1972; B.J., University of Texas, Austin, Tex., 1976; journalist; broadcasting executive; elected as a Republican to the One Hundred Third and to the six succeeding Congresses (January 3, 1993-January 3, 2007); unsuccessful candidate for reelection to the One Hundred Tenth Congress.

<p>Henry Bonilla (born January 2, 1954) is a former congressman who represented Texas's 23rd congressional district in the United States House of Representatives. He was defeated in his bid for re-election by Ciro Rodriguez, a former Democratic member of Congress, in a special election runoff held on December 12, 2006. His term expired January 3, 2007 when the 110th Congress officially began.</p>

<p>Bonilla was born in San Antonio, the son of Anita Arellano and Enrique A. Bonilla. When he was young he joined a TRIO Educational Talent Search program, which provides academic support and college awareness activities to students. He graduated from South San Antonio High School in 1972 and received his Bachelor of Journalism degree from the University of Texas at Austin in 1976. Before entering politics, he was a television news executive at San Antonio's CBS affiliate, KENS-TV. His former wife, Deborah Knapp (born December 1, 1954), continues as an anchor at the station. He has since married the former Sheryl White Shelby (born 1959).</p>

<p>In March 1992, Bonilla won the 23rd district's Republican nomination for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. The 23rd had been a Democratic district since its creation in 1967, but Bonilla charged four-term incumbent Albert G. Bustamante with neglecting his constituents' needs, being involved in the House banking scandal by writing 30 "cheques calientes" in the House Bank, and taking excessive and questionable junkets abroad.</p>