Marco Rubio

Marco Antonio Rubio (born May 28, 1971) is an American politician and lawyer serving as the senior United States senator from Florida, a seat he has held since 2011. A member of the Republican Party, he served as Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives from 2006 to 2008. Rubio unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for President of the United States in 2016, winning presidential primaries in Minnesota, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.

Rubio is a Cuban American from Miami, Florida. After serving as a city commissioner for West Miami in the 1990s, he was elected to represent the 111th district in the Florida House of Representatives in 2000. Subsequently, he was elected speaker of the Florida House; he served for two years beginning in November 2006. Upon leaving the Florida legislature in 2008 due to term limits, Rubio taught at Florida International University.

Rubio was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2010. In April 2015, he decided to run for president instead of seeking reelection to the Senate. He suspended his campaign for the presidency on March 15, 2016, after losing the Florida Republican primary to the eventual winner of the presidential election, Donald Trump. He then decided to run for reelection to the Senate, winning a second term later that year. During the 2016 Republican presidential primary campaign in which Rubio and Trump were opponents, Rubio was critical of Trump. Rubio ultimately endorsed Trump before the 2016 general election and was largely supportive of Trump during his presidency. Due to his influence on U.S. policy on Latin America during the Trump administration, he was described as a "virtual secretary of state for Latin America". Rubio was reelected to a third term in 2022, defeating Democratic nominee Val Demings.

Early life and education

Marco Antonio Rubio was born in Miami, Florida, the second son and third child of Mario Rubio Reina and Oriales (née Garcia) Rubio. His parents were Cubans who immigrated to the United States in 1956 during the regime of Fulgencio Batista, two and a half years before Fidel Castro ascended to power after the Cuban Revolution. His mother made at least four return trips to Cuba after Castro's takeover, including a month-long trip in 1961. Neither of Rubio's parents was a U.S. citizen at the time of Rubio's birth, but his parents applied for U.S. citizenship and were naturalized in 1975. ''See also'
Live Chat: Marco Rubio's embellished family story
, ''The Washington Post'' (October 24, 2011). Some relatives of Rubio's were admitted to the U.S. as refugees.

Rubio's maternal grandfather, Pedro Victor Garcia, immigrated to the U.S. legally in 1956, but returned to Cuba to find work in 1959. When he fled communist Cuba and returned to the U.S. in 1962 without a visa, he was detained as an undocumented immigrant and an immigration judge ordered him to be deported. Immigration officials reversed their decision later that day, the deportation order was not enforced, and Garcia was given a legal status of "parolee" that allowed him to stay in the U.S. Garcia re-applied for permanent resident status in 1966 following passage of the Cuban Adjustment Act, at which point his residency was approved. Rubio enjoyed a close relationship with his grandfather during his childhood.

In October 2011, ''The Washington Post'' reported that Rubio's previous statements that his parents were forced to leave Cuba in 1959 (after Fidel Castro came to power) were falsehoods. His parents actually left Cuba in 1956, during the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. According to the ''Post'', " nFlorida, being connected to the post-revolution exile community gives a politician cachet that could never be achieved by someone identified with the pre-Castro exodus, a group sometimes viewed with suspicion." Rubio denied that he had embellished his family history, stating that his public statements about his family were based on "family lore". Rubio asserted that his parents intended to return to Cuba in the 1960s. He added that his mother took his two elder siblings back to Cuba in 1961 with the intention of living there permanently (his father remained behind in Miami "wrapping up the family's matters"), but the nation's move toward communism caused the family to change its plans. Rubio stated that " heessence of my family story is why they came to America in the first place; and why they had to stay."

Rubio has three siblings: older brother Mario, older sister Barbara (married to Orlando Cicilia), and younger sister Veronica (formerly married to entertainer Carlos Ponce). Growing up, his family was Catholic, though from age8 to age11 he and his family attended the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints while living in Las Vegas. During those years in Nevada, his father worked as a bartender at Sam's Town Hotel and his mother as a housekeeper at the Imperial Palace Hotel and Casino. He received his first communion as a Catholic in 1984 before moving back to Miami with his family a year later. He was confirmed and later married in the Catholic Church.

Rubio attended South Miami Senior High School, graduating in 1989. He attended Tarkio College in Missouri for one year on a football scholarship before enrolling at Santa Fe Community College (now Santa Fe College) in Gainesville, Florida. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from the University of Florida in 1993 and his Juris Doctor '' cum laude'' from the University of Miami School of Law in 1996. Rubio has said that he incurred $100,000 in student loans. He paid off those loans in 2012.

Early career

While studying law, Rubio interned for U.S. Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. He also worked on Republican senator Bob Dole's 1996 presidential campaign. In April 1998, two years after finishing law school, Rubio was elected to a seat as city commissioner for West Miami. He became a member of the Florida House of Representatives in early 2000.Mishak, Michael
"What Kind of Leader Is Marco Rubio? An Investigation; A look at what happens when the Florida senator wields power"
, '' National Journal'' (November 5, 2015).

Florida House of Representatives

Elections and concurrent employment

In late 1999, a special election was called to fill the seat for the 111th House District in the Florida House of Representatives, representing Miami. It was considered a safe Republican seat, so Rubio's main challenge was to win the GOP nomination. He campaigned as a moderate, advocating tax cuts and early childhood education.

Rubio placed second in the Republican primary on December 14, 1999, but won the runoff election for the Republican nomination, defeating Angel Zayon (a television and radio reporter who was popular with Cuban exiles) by just 64 votes. He then defeated Democrat Anastasia Garcia with 72% of the vote in a January 25, 2000, special election.

In November 2000, Rubio was reelected unopposed. In 2002, he was reelected to a second term unopposed. In 2004, he was reelected to a third term with 66% of the vote. In 2006, he was reelected to a fourth term unopposed.

Rubio spent almost nine years in the Florida House of Representatives. Since the Florida legislative session officially lasted only sixty days, he spent about half of each year in Miami, where he practiced law, first at a law firm that specialized in land use and zoning until 2014 when he took a position with Broad and Cassel, a Miami law and lobbying firm (though state law precluded him from engaging in lobbying or introducing legislation on behalf of the firm's clients).

Tenure

When Rubio took his seat in the legislature in Tallahassee in January 2000, voters in Florida had recently approved a constitutional amendment on term limits. This created openings for new legislative leaders due to many senior incumbents having to retire. According to an article in '' National Journal'', Rubio also gained an extra advantage in that regard, because he was sworn in early due to the special election, and he would take advantage of these opportunities to join the GOP leadership.

Majority whip and majority leader

Later in 2000, the majority leader of the House, Mike Fasano, promoted Rubio to be one of two majority whips. ''National Journal'' described that position as typically requiring a lot of arm-twisting, but said Rubio took a different approach that relied more on persuading legislators and less on coercing them.

Fasano resigned in September 2001 as majority leader of the House due to disagreements with the House speaker, and the speaker passed over Rubio to appoint a more experienced replacement for Fasano. Rubio volunteered to work on redistricting, which he accomplished by dividing the state into five regions, then working individually with the lawmakers involved, and this work helped to cement his relationships with GOP leaders.

In December 2002, Rubio was appointed House majority leader by Speaker Johnnie Byrd. He persuaded Speaker Byrd to restructure the job of majority leader, so that legislative wrangling would be left to the whip's office, and Rubio would become the main spokesperson for the House GOP.

According to ''National Journal'', during this period Rubio did not entirely adhere to doctrinaire conservative principles, and some colleagues described him as a centrist "who sought out Democrats and groups that don’t typically align with the GOP". He co-sponsored legislation that would have let farmworkers sue growers in state court if they were shortchanged on pay, and co-sponsored a bill for giving in-state tuition rates to the children of undocumented immigrants. In the wake of the September 11 attacks, he voiced suspicion about expanding police detention powers and helped defeat a GOP bill that would have required colleges to increase reporting to the state about foreign students.

As a state representative, Rubio requested legislative earmarks (called "Community Budget Issue Requests" in Florida), totaling about $145million for 2001 and 2002, but none thereafter.Roig-Franzia, Manuel. ''The Rise of Marco Rubio''
pp. 106–107
(Simon & Schuster 2012). Additionally, an office in the executive branch compiled a longer list of spending requests by legislators, including Rubio,Caputo, Marc
"Rubio's campaign image belies history of $250million in pork requests"
, ''The Miami Herald

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