Aponte, Mari Carmen, 1946-

<p>Mari Carmen Aponte (born 1946) is a Washington DC-based attorney who was named acting Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs on May 5, 2016. Before this post, she served as U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador, a position she first held from August 2010 until December 2011 and then from June 14, 2012, until December 2015. Before that she was serving as a member of the Board of Directors of Oriental Group, a major financial and banking services enterprise in Puerto Rico. President Obama also nominated her as the United States' Permanent Representative to the Organization of American States, but the Senate had not acted upon that nomination upon adjournment in December, 2014.</p>

<p>Aponte was born in Puerto Rico and attended school in the United States. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from Rosemont College, a Master of Arts in Theatre from Villanova University and a Juris Doctor degree from Temple University Beasley School of Law, one of a few female law students enrolled under an affirmative action program, after serving a stint as a public school teacher. In 1979, she was appointed as a White House Fellow by President Jimmy Carter, serving as a Special Assistant to former New Orleans Mayor Moon Landrieu, who served as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.</p>

<p>A close friend of former Resident Commissioner and Governor Aníbal Acevedo Vilá, she actually was his landlord and housemate during his four years of Congressional service in Washington, DC. She is also a close friend of Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who swore her in as only the eleventh Puerto Rican United States Ambassador since 1898.</p>

<p>In the early 1990s, Aponte dated an insurance salesman named Roberto Tamayo. Tamayo was accused by a Cuban intelligence defector of spying for the Cuban government. Tamayo was alternately said by a US intelligence source to be an FBI informant. Aponte's relationship with Tamayo, which ended in 1994, was brought up by Republican Senator Jim DeMint as a reason to stop her confirmation as ambassador to El Salvador in 2011, however, she was confirmed as no "nefarious connection was found".</p>

<p>In 1998, President Bill Clinton nominated Aponte to serve as the United States' ambassador to the Dominican Republic. However, Aponte asked that her nomination be withdrawn from consideration by the Senate after her involvement with Roberto Tamayo was made public. After Aponte's nomination was withdrawn, Clinton designated Aponte a special assistant in the Office of Presidential Personnel.</p>

<p>In 2001, Puerto Rico Governor Sila Calderón appointed Aponte to be executive director of the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration, a post she held until 2004.</p>

<p>Aponte was serving as a member of the District of Columbia Judicial Nominations Commission when President Obama nominated her in December 2009 to serve as ambassador to El Salvador. After the Senate failed to act upon her nomination over a period of eight months, Obama gave Aponte a recess appointment to the post in August 2010. The recess appointment lasted through the end of 2011, meaning that for Aponte to remain in office until the end of Obama's term in office in January 2013, the Senate would need to confirm Aponte before the end of 2011.</p>

<p>In 2011, Aponte helped organize and hosted President Obama's state visit to El Salvador as part of a Latin American tour that also included Brazil and Chile.</p>

<p>In August, 2011, she personally hosted a visit from U.S. Supreme Court Justice (and fellow Puerto Rican) Sonia Sotomayor, who met with her Salvadorean counterparts.</p>

<p>In December 2011, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid filed for cloture on Aponte's nomination, in an effort to break Senate Republicans' filibuster of her nomination. On December 12, 2011, the Senate held a cloture vote on Aponte's nomination. The cloture vote required 60 votes in order to cut off debate and allow the Senate to proceed to an up-or-down vote on Aponte's nomination. However, the cloture vote failed in a mostly party-line, 49–37 vote, with 49 senators voting for cloture and 37 senators (including Reid for parliamentary reasons) opposing it.</p>

<p>Because Aponte did not win Senate confirmation before the end of 2011, her tenure in El Salvador ended at the end of December 2011, and she returned to the United States.</p>

<p>On June 14, 2012, the Senate held another cloture vote on her nomination, which passed, 62-37, effectively assuring her the ambassadorship. Immediately after the passage of the cloture vote, the Senate held a voice vote on Aponte's nomination, and she was confirmed.</p>

<p>Ambassador Aponte was also appointed by President Obama as Permanent Representative to the OAS, but the Senate adjourned in December, 2014 before taking up her nomination.</p>

<p>Aponte has served as a member of the Board of Directors of Oriental Group, a major financial and banking services enterprise in Puerto Rico, from 1998 to 2001 and from 2005 until appointed as ambassador to El Salvador.</p>

<p>In addition to practicing law for decades, she was a vice chair of the National Alliance for Hispanic Health and a consultant to the Hispanic Information and Telecommunications Network (HITN).</p>

<p>She served as a director at the National Council of La Raza, the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, the University of the District of Columbia and Rosemont College. She presided over the Hispanic Bar Association of the District of Columbia and the Hispanic National Bar Association.</p>

<p>From May 5, 2016 to January 20, 2017, when Donald Trump took over the presidency of the United States, the nation’s top diplomat for relations with other Western Hemisphere nations was Mari Del Carmen Aponte, who received a recess appointment from President Barack Obama to head the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs.</p>

<p>Born in 1946 and raised in the Santurce district of San Juan, Puerto Rico, Aponte earned a B.A. in Political Science at Rosemont College in 1968, an M.A. in Theater at Villanova University in 1970, and a J.D. at Temple University in 1975. In the years between her M.A. and J.D., Aponte taught school in a predominantly Puerto Rican neighborhood in Camden, New Jersey, where, in 1972, students seized control of their school as part of a protest demanding more relevant educational opportunities. Sparked by the student protesters and inspired by Latino lawyer-activist Nelson Diaz, who eventually became a state judge and general counsel at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Aponte decided to go to law school.</p>

<p>Aponte served as a White House fellow from 1979 to 1980, assigned to the Department of Housing and Urban, where she worked as special assistant to Housing and Urban Development Secretary Moon Landrieu. When Jimmy Carter was replaced as president by Ronald Reagan in 1981, Aponte left government for the private sector. She practiced law for the next 20 years in Washington D.C. and New York. She was an associate at Powell, Goldstein, Frazer & Murphy and a partner at Alexander, Gebhardt, Aponte & Marks.</p>

<p>In 1998, President Bill Clinton nominated Aponte to be ambassador to the Dominican Republic, but Republicans used rumors that she had been recruited by Cuban intelligence to kill the nomination. In actual fact, from 1982 to 1994 Aponte had dated a Cuban-born insurance salesman named Roberto Tamayo, who was alleged to be working for Cuba, but may have been working for the U.S. The FBI reviewed the matter, eventually clearing Aponte of any wrongdoing and giving her a high-level security clearance.</p>

<p>After the withdrawal of the ambassadorial nomination, Clinton made Aponte a special assistant in the Office of Presidential Personnel, where she had volunteered during 1993.</p>

<p>From 2001-2004, Aponte served as executive director of the Puerto Rican Federal Affairs Administration, representing the governor of Puerto Rico on all matters to state and federal agencies, as well as to Congress and the Executive Branch. Aponte ran a consulting business, Aponte Consulting, and worked as a strategic consultant to the Hispanic Information and Telecommunications Network (HITN) in New York.</p>

<p>President Obama nominated Aponte to be ambassador to El Salvador on December 9, 2009, and she was confirmed by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee April 27, 2010. However, Republicans resurrected the debunked Tamayo rumors and put a hold on her nomination, so Obama gave her a recess appointment on August 19, 2010. Aponte had to leave El Salvador at the end of December 2011 when her recess stint expired—but then the Senate reversed course in June 2012 by finally confirming her nomination. Aponte returned to El Salvador in June 2012, serving as ambassador until January 2016.</p>

<p>Aponte caused a stir in El Salvador in 2011 when, in response to a general State Department initiative to support gay rights, she wrote an opinion piece in a local newspaper stating, “No one should be subjected to aggression because of who he is or who he loves. Homophobia and brutal hostility are often based on lack of understanding about what it truly means to be gay or transgender. To avoid negative perceptions, we must work together with education and support for those facing those who promote hatred.”</p>

<p>In July 2014, Obama nominated Aponte to be the next U.S. ambassador to the Organization of American States, but Republicans in the Senate blocked the appointment. In 2016, Obama gave her a recess appointment to the Western Hemisphere job.</p>

<p>Aponte has served as a member of the board of directors of the Oriental Financial Group (1998-2001), the National Council of La Raza and the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (now known as Latino Justice). She has been a member of the boards of the University of the District of Columbia and Rosemont College, and a member of the District of Columbia Judicial Nominations Commission. She has served as president of the Hispanic National Bar Association and the Hispanic Bar Association of the District of Columbia. She has never married and has no children.</p>

<p>Mari Carmen Aponte was appointed Acting Assistant Secretary in the Department of State’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs on May 5, 2016.</p>

<p>Previously, Aponte was the Ambassador of the United States to El Salvador from 2012 until February 2016. Her priorities in El Salvador included expanding crime prevention, growing the economy and moving the country towards democracy, sustainable development and human rights.</p>

<p>She is the first Puerto Rican woman to hold the title of ambassador. Born in Puerto Rico, Aponte moved to the United States to pursue a better education. After earning a BA in political science from Rosemont College, she taught in Camden, New Jersey and became aware of underrepresented educational needs of minority students. Aponte enrolled in Temple University Beasley School of Law and earned a JD in 1975. She was one of few Puerto Rican women enrolled in a U.S. accredited law program at that time and, subsequently, the first Latina lawyer in Pennsylvania. Aponte moved to Washington, D.C. in 1979 when President Jimmy Carter appointed her as a White House Fellow.</p>

<p>She continued practicing law in D.C and cofounded one of the first minority-owned law firms. In 1984, Aponte was elected the first woman president of the Hispanic National Bar Association. She continued to hold leadership positions for the next 25 years, advocating for women and the Latino community. From 2001-2004, she was Executive Director of the Puerto Rican Federal Affairs Administration. She was also on the board of directors for the National Council of La Raza and the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund and later provided strategic counsel for the Hispanic Information and Telecommunications Network, a Spanish-speaking national non-commercial television network. Aponte received the 2015 Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award from the American Bar Association in recognition of her community service.</p>