Rochelle Mercedes Garza (born 1984/1985) is an American attorney from

Brownsville, Texas Brownsville () is a city in Cameron County in the U.S. state of Texas. It is on the western Gulf Coast in South Texas, adjacent to the border with Matamoros, Mexico. The city covers , and has a population of 186,738 as of the 2020 census. It ...

currently serving as one of the five Commissioners on the United States Commission on Civil Rights. She is a civil rights attorney who practices family law,

criminal defense In the field of criminal law, there are a variety of conditions that will tend to negate elements of a crime (particularly the ''intent'' element), known as defenses. The label may be apt in jurisdictions where the ''accused'' may be assigned some ...

Immigration law Immigration law refers to the national statutes, regulations Regulation is the management of complex systems according to a set of rules and trends. In systems theory, these types of rules exist in various fields of biology and society, but the ...

, constitutional law and is the president of the

Texas Civil Rights Project Texas Civil Rights Project (TCRP) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in Austin, Texas, that advocates for voting rights, racial and economic justice, and criminal justice reform. It was formed in 1990 by attorney James C. Harrington. ...

. In 2017 a federal notice was named after her because of her work in a notable reproductive rights case. She was the Democratic nominee in the

2022 Texas Attorney General election The 2022 Texas Attorney General election will take place on November 8, 2022, to elect the Attorney General of Texas. Incumbent Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton is not term-limited as Texas does not prescribe term limits for state-wide elec ...

losing to incumbent Ken Paxton.

Early life and education

Garza was raised in

. Both of her parents were public school teachers. Her father became a teacher, a lawyer and then served South Texas as an elected State District Judge for 21 years. Garza earned her Bachelor of Arts degree with honors from

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

in 2007 and her

Juris Doctor The Juris Doctor (J.D. or JD), also known as Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D., JD, D.Jur., or DJur), is a graduate-entry professional degree in law and one of several Doctor of Law degrees. The J.D. is the standard degree obtained to practice law ...

from University of Houston Law Center in 2013.

Career

Garza was a staff attorney for the

ACLU The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...

. Garza became a managing partner of Garza & Garza Law, PLLC. Garza was a board member at Moody Clinic (January 2018 – January 2020), Director of the Cameron County Bar Association (May 2018 – December 2021), Chair at the Ethics Advisory Committee, City of Brownsville, Texas (January 2021 – July 2021) and a board member at Jane's Due Process since February 2019. On January 26, 2023, Garza was announced as president of the Texas Civil Rights Project, a civil rights litigation and advocacy organization for voting rights, immigration and criminal justice work.

Attorney General election

In 2022, Garza was the

Texas Democratic Party The Texas Democratic Party is the affiliate of the Democratic Party in the U.S. state of Texas and one of the two major political parties in the state. The party's headquarters are in Austin, Texas. President Lyndon B. Johnson was a Texas Democ ...

nominee for

Attorney General In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general or attorney-general (sometimes abbreviated AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. The plural is attorneys general. In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have exec ...

. In the primary election, Mike Fields, an attorney and former judge of the Harris County Criminal Court at Law No. 14 ''(endorsed Garza in runoff)'',

Lee Merritt S. Lee Merritt (born Stacy Sylvester Lee Merritt) is an American civil rights lawyer and activist, most known for his work on racial justice issues. On March 20, 2021, Merritt announced on Twitter his proposal to run for Texas attorney general ...

, a civil rights attorney ''(endorsed Garza in runoff)'' and S. T-Bone Raynor, attorney were all eliminated in the primary. Garza and Joe Jaworski, an attorney, mediator, former mayor of Galveston, and grandson of former U.S. Department of Justice special counsel Leon Jaworski advanced to a runoff election. Garza won the runoff election, becoming the first Latina nominee for Texas attorney general. Garza lost in the general election to Republican Ken Paxton. Garza received 43.7%, 3,482,909 votes while Paxton received 53.4%, 4,268,826 votes.

Notable cases

Garza represented a 17-year-old girl who came to the United States without her parents, and who resided in a government-funded shelter in Texas. The Trump administration would not allow her to leave the shelter to get an abortion. In 2017 the "Garza Notice", requiring that access to reproductive care be provided to teenagers housed in federal immigration detention facilities, was named after her.

Personal life

Garza grew up in a Catholic household. According to her mother, she was crowd-surfed to Pope John Paul II at eight months old and blessed by the Pope. Her brother, Robby, experienced a brain injury during childbirth that resulted in

disabilities Disability is the experience of any condition that makes it more difficult for a person to do certain activities or have equitable access within a given society. Disabilities may be cognitive, developmental, intellectual, mental, physical, se ...

and he died before she went to college.

References

Texas lawyers Texas Democrats 1980s births Living people Brown University alumni University of Houston Law Center alumni University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston alumni United States Commission on Civil Rights members {{DEFAULTSORT:Harza, Rochelle