Aaron Peña

Lionel Aron Peña, Jr., known as Aaron (born June 8, 1959) is an American attorney and politician who for 10 years represented House District 40 in the Texas House of Representatives, a seat he was first sworn into on January 14, 2003. On November 25, 2011, Rep. Aaron Peña announced that he would not seek re-election to a sixth term in office.Aaron Peña to retire, says court-drawn map makes his district unwinnable - The Monitor: Home
/ref> He ended his tenure with the Texas House of Representatives on January 8, 2013 and returned to his work as an attorney and advisor in the private and public sectors. Currently Peña is employed with the Texas General Land Office, serving under the leadership of Land Commissioner George P. Bush.

Early life and education

Lionel Aron Peña, Jr., was born in Austin, Texas, to Lionel Aron Peña, Sr. and Sylvia Alamia Peña. The Peña and Alamia families originated in the Rio Grande Valley in Deep South Texas. His parents had moved to Austin so that his father could attend the University of Texas Law School. To support the family, Peña's parents worked at the Texas Capitol Complex—his mother for State Comptroller Zollie Steakley and father as a Texas House Committee Clerk. Peña spent the first few years of his life in a home on the banks of Waller Creek, two blocks from the State Capitol, now the location of the Dell Medical School.

After two years in Austin, the family returned to South Texas and settled in the city of Edinburg. "Little A" is the nickname given to Aaron as a young child.

Peña graduated from Edinburg High School in 1977. Thereafter, Peña attended Pan American University, now the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. He thereafter moved to Austin where he received a Bachelor of Arts in political science from the University of Texas in May 1984. During his undergraduate studies, Peña worked as a legislative assistant at the State Capitol. Like his father before him, Peña studied to be a lawyer, receiving his Juris Doctor in May 1987 from Texas Southern University School of Law in Houston. Peña immediately returned to Edinburg to raise his family and to practice law.

Early legal career

In May 1988, Peña was licensed to practice law by the State Bar of Texas. In his first years of practice, Peña took on an employment case as his first jury trial which was perceived to be unwinnable. The case resulted in a sizable verdict and marked the beginning of a successful career in the field of labor and employment law. In December 1995, Peña became board certified by the State Bar of Texas in the area of Labor and Employment Law. Peña served on the State Bar of Texas' governing board for Labor and Employment attorneys. After seventeen years of working almost exclusively as a plaintiff's lawyer, Peña began working exclusively as a civil defense lawyer. He twice earned the distinction and title "Super Lawyer" by ''Texas Monthly''.

State legislature

Representative Peña was first elected in 2002 and served five terms in the Texas Legislature.

Early in his legislative career, Peña was selected to serve on the Appropriations Committee. Later, in his third term, Peña served as the Chairman of House Committee of Criminal Jurisprudence. In his fourth term, the Representative served as the Vice-Chairman of the Elections Committee and as Chairman of the House Select Committee on Emergency Preparedness. His fifth and final term saw him chair the House Committee on Technology.

At his arrival to the Texas Legislature, Peña was one of the early national pioneers in the use of social media. His digital communications to his constituents, novel at the time, were featured in national magazines and newspapers. In 2006
Capitol Inside
named the Representative's website one of the Top 5 in the state. The National Conference of State Legislatures and the Council of State Governments invited Peña to present seminars at annual meetings to highlight his innovative approach to communicating with constituents.

In his first session, the Representative was a member of the so-called " Killer D's", a group of Texas House Democrats who left the state of Texas for Ardmore, Oklahoma during the week of May 12, 2003 and prevented a quorum in the House. The Killer D's left to prevent House consideration of redistricting legislation.

On December 14, 2010, Peña stated that Texas Democrats have strayed too far from his conservative views thus causing him to run in the next election as a Republican in Hidalgo County which has never before elected a Republican to office. Peña and State Representative Allan Ritter of Nederland in Texas's 21st district have switched political parties giving the Republican Party a 101–49 supermajority in the Texas House of Representatives.

On January 24, 2011, the Hispanic Republican Conference of Texas was formed. Representative Peña was elected the founding chairman of the organization; and on February 2, 2011 was formally sworn in by Texas Attorney General

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