Bustamante, Albert G. (Albert Garza), 1935-

BUSTAMANTE, Albert G., a Representative from Texas; born in Asherton, Dimmit County, Tex., April 8, 1935; graduated from Asherton High School, Asherton, Tex., 1954; paratrooper, United States Army, 1954-1956; studied a liberal arts course at San Antonio College, 1956-1958; B.A., Sul Ross State College, Alpine, Tex., 1961; educator; coach; assistant to Congressman Henry Gonzalez, 1968-1971; member of the Bexar County Commission 1973-1978; Bexar County judge 1979-1985; elected as a Democrat to the Ninety-ninth and to the three succeeding Congresses (January 3, 1985-January 3, 1993); unsuccessful candidate for reelection to the One Hundred Third Congress in 1992; is a resident of San Antonio, Tex.

<p>Albert Garza Bustamante (born April 8, 1935) is a former member of the United States House of Representatives from Texas. A Democrat, he was a prominent Hispanic member of the House.</p>

<p>Bustamante was born and raised in Asherton, Texas, to a family of Mexican migrant workers. After graduating from high school, he enlisted in the United States Army, serving for two years as a paratrooper. In 1958, he enrolled in San Antonio College, earning an associate degree. Bustamante then went on to major in education at Sul Ross State College. After earning his degree, he was hired as a teacher at San Antonio's Cooper Jr. High School.</p>

<p>In 1968, Bustamante took a job as an aide to Congressman Henry Gonzalez. In his first run for elective office in 1972, Bustamante was elected as a Bexar County, Texas, Commissioner. He then was elected as a county judge in 1978 and served on the state's Jail Standard Commission.</p>

<p>Bustamante burst into the national spotlight in 1984, when he challenged nine-term incumbent Chick Kazen in the Democratic primary for Texas's 23rd congressional district. No Republican even filed in this heavily Democratic, Hispanic-majority district, meaning that the Democratic primary was the real election. He defeated Kazen in an upset, all but assuring his election in November. He was reelected three times from this vast district, which spanned 800 miles from his home in San Antonio to El Paso.</p>

<p>While in Congress, he served on the Armed Services Committee and helped to keep open several Texan military bases. He served on the Procurement and Military Nuclear Systems Subcommittee, the Subcommittee on Energy, and the Natural Resources Subcommittee. In 1987 and 1988 he supported nuclear test ban amendments, and he voiced concern for environmental and safety problems in the nation's nuclear production plants. He played an important role in delaying funding for a Special Isotope Separation project in Idaho.</p>

<p>In 1985 Bustamante was elected president of his Democratic freshman class in the U.S. House of Representatives and was assigned to the Committees on Armed Services and Government Operations.</p>

<p>Bustamante changed his support of the administration's policy toward Nicaragua. In 1986 he voted to authorize an aid package for the Contras, but in the following two years he voted against Contra aid.</p>

<p>In the 100th Congress, Bustamante was assigned to the Select Committee on Hunger. He worked to increase nutrition funding for Hispanics, and brought attention to the "colonias," or rural slums, where many Hispanic immigrants live in deplorable conditions.</p>

<p>In December 1990 Bustamante became a member of the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee. That same year he voted to approve a civil rights bill and pass a family and medical leave bill over President Bush's veto.</p>

<p>He was also a member of the House Task Force on Drugs and Crime, in which he used his power to push for tighter border controls to keep out illegal drugs from Mexico. Bustamante called for deficit reduction, but also believed that more money should be spent on education and health care.</p>

<p>In 1992, Bustamante was investigated for fraud and racketeering, which ruined his reputation. He was not helped by the 1990s round of redistricting, which carved the 28th district out of most of Bustamante's territory and left a heavily Republican section of western San Antonio in the 23rd. Bustamante's Republican opponent, popular newscaster Henry Bonilla, hammered Bustamante for neglecting the needs of his constituents, excessive junketeering and writing 30 bad checks in the House banking scandal. Although Bill Clinton carried the district, Bustamante lost to Bonilla by a 21-point margin — the largest margin of defeat for an incumbent that year.</p>

<p>Bustamante was convicted of accepting bribes and racketeering in 1993 and was sentenced to 42 months in prison. Since his release, Bustamante has faded from politics. He currently lives in San Antonio with his wife, Rebecca.</p>

<p>Born to migrant workers and unable to speak English until he was nine years old, Albert Bustamante was eventually elected to Congress from the poor Hispanic suburbs in South Texas where he grew up. A self-described political “moderate who hugs the middle and can go either way,” and an active member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC), Bustamante was the swing vote on important Latin American issues such as aid to Nicaraguan rebels and immigration control during his four terms in Congress.</p>

<p>The oldest of 11 children in a family of migrant workers, Albert Garza Bustamante was born April 8, 1935, in Asherton, Texas. As a child, he picked crops with his family in Oregon from May to September. “I know the vicious cycle of migrant life,” he later recalled. “What we earned in the five months before returning to Texas in September had to support us the rest of the year.” Bustamante began school at age nine, speaking an “in-between Spanish dialect” and unable to read or speak English. Hampered by this late start, Bustamante struggled academically, but managed to graduate from Asherton High School in 1954. He joined the U.S. Army that same year, serving as a paratrooper until 1956. Bustamante attended San Antonio College from 1956 to 1958 before transferring to Sul Ross State College in Alpine, Texas. Financing his final semester of education with a $250 loan from a school janitor, he graduated with a degree in secondary education in 1961. Bustamante taught at Cooper Junior High School in San Antonio and coached football and basketball for seven years. He married Rebecca Pounders, and the couple raised three children: Albert, John, and Celina.</p>

<p>In 1968 Bustamante got his start in politics as a constituent aide in the San Antonio-based district office of U.S. Representative Henry González. He worked there for three years. But in 1971, believing the liberal Democratic incumbent on the county commission “had polarized the community, pitting Anglo against Mexican-American,” Bustamante won his first elective office to a five-year term in the Bexar County Commission. In 1978 Bustamante became the first Hispanic American elected to a major Bexar County office when he won a judgeship. He was soon recognized as one of the leading conservative Democrats in the county, which included San Antonio and its suburbs.</p>