María Lilly del Carmen Téllez García (born 14 November 1967), professionally known as Lilly Téllez, is a Mexican politician and journalist. She has served as a

senator A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or Legislative chamber, chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the Ancient Rome, ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior ...

from

Sonora Sonora (), officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sonora (), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the Administrative divisions of Mexico, Federal Entities of Mexico. The state is divided into Municipalities of Sonora, 72 ...

since

2018 Events January * January 1 – Bulgaria takes over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, after the Estonian presidency. * January 4 – SPLM-IO rebels loyal to Chan Garang Lual start a raid against Juba, capital of ...

, initially representing

Morena Morena or MORENA may refer to: Places * Morena, Madhya Pradesh, a town in central India * Morena (Lok Sabha constituency), Madhya Pradesh * Morena (Vidhan Sabha constituency), Madhya Pradesh * Morena, San Diego, California, a neighborhood * Mo ...

before joining the National Action Party in 2020. She previously worked as a journalist for television broadcaster

TV Azteca Televisión Azteca, S.A.B. de C.V., commonly known as TV Azteca, is a Mexican multimedia conglomerate owned by Grupo Salinas. It is the second-largest mass media company in Mexico after Televisa. It primarily competes with Televisa as well as so ...

Career

As a journalist

Téllez was born in

Hermosillo Hermosillo (), formerly called Pitic (as in ''Santísima Trinidad del Pitic'' and ''Presidio del Pitic''), is a city in the center of the northwestern Mexican state of Sonora. It is the municipal seat of the Hermosillo municipality, the state's ...

but spent her childhood in

Ensenada, Baja California Ensenada ("inlet") is a city in Ensenada Municipality, Baja California, situated on the Pacific Coast of Mexico. Located on Bahía de Todos Santos, the city had a population of 279,765 in 2018, making it the List of cities in Baja California, th ...

. From 1984 to 1994, she worked at Canal 6 in Hermosillo, where she received the State Journalism Award in 1992. In 1994, she was hired to host the morning edition of TV Azteca's main news program, ''

Hechos Hechos (Facts) is the news program of TV Azteca in Mexico, aired on its Azteca Uno network. ''Hechos'' newscasts air in the morning, at midday and at 9pm on weekdays and weekdays on Saturdays. All three weekday editions of ''Hechos'' beat Telev ...

'', and to be an investigative journalist. In 1999, she became a full-time investigative journalist. On June 22, 2000, her car was shot by a group of unknown men, but she was unharmed. She attributed this attack to a recent airing of an investigation related to the Arellano Félix family of drug dealers; the case was closed with no suspects found. In 2005, she began a new investigative program for

Azteca Trece Azteca Uno (formerly Azteca Trece) is a Mexican national broadcast television network owned by TV Azteca, with more than 100 transmitters across the country. Azteca Uno broadcasts on virtual channel 1. Azteca Uno programming is available in M ...

, ''Mitos y Hechos'' (Myths and Facts), broadcast twice a month. The program came to an end when TV Azteca, evidently ceding to government pressure, did not air the third part of a report on the sale of

Grupo Financiero Banamex Grupo Financiero Banamex S.A. de C.V. has its origins and is the owner of the Banco Nacional de México or Banamex (branded as Citibanamex 2016-2025). It is the second-largest bank in Mexico. The Banamex Financial Group was purchased by Citigro ...

Citigroup Citigroup Inc. or Citi (Style (visual arts), stylized as citi) is an American multinational investment banking, investment bank and financial services company based in New York City. The company was formed in 1998 by the merger of Citicorp, t ...

and the controversy surrounding the winding down of the

Fobaproa Fobaproa (''Fondo Bancario de Protección al Ahorro''; "Savings Protection Banking Fund", in Spanish) was a contingencies fund created in 1990 joto by the Mexican government, led by then dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) to attempt ...

bank contingency fund. In 2007, Téllez received the Premio Antena award from the National Chamber of the Radio and Television Industry (CIRT) for her broadcasting career. In 2010, she debuted the program ''Diagnóstico reservado'' (Diagnosis Reserved) on Proyecto 40. Téllez later left TV Azteca to write columns and make video content for the digital news site

SDP Noticias SDP may refer to: Computing * Scenario Design Power, a power level mode of certain generations of Intel's mobile processors * Semidefinite programming, an optimization procedure * Service data point, a node in mobile telecommunication networks ...

Election as senator

In November 2017,

Andrés Manuel López Obrador Andrés Manuel López Obrador (; born 13 November 1953), also known by his initials AMLO, is a Mexican former politician, political scientist, public administrator and writer who served as the 65th president of Mexico from 2018 to 2024. He se ...

contacted Téllez and offered to run her as a Senate candidate from his

National Regeneration Movement The National Regeneration Movement (), commonly referred to by its syllabic abbreviation Morena (), is a major left-wing political party in Mexico, often described as oscillating between social democracy and populism. As of 2023, it is the la ...

(Morena) party from the state of Sonora. Two months later, Téllez announced in an interview with

Ciro Gómez Leyva Ciro Gómez Leyva (born October 10, 1957) is a Mexican news anchor and personality. He hosts the main newscast on Imagen Televisión and a morning radio program, ''Ciro por la Mañana'' (Ciro in the Morning), for Radio Fórmula. Gómez Leyva has a ...

Radio Fórmula Radio Fórmula is a Mexican talk radio network. Founded in 1968, Radio Fórmula programs are broadcast on more than 100 stations in Mexico as well as several stations in the United States. It is the flagship product of Grupo Fórmula, which al ...

that she would take up the offer, though she would not become a Morena party member. She would run alongside

Alfonso Durazo Montaño Alfonso Durazo Montaño (born 11 July 1954) is a Mexican politician who served as chief spokesman and private secretary of President of Mexico, President Vicente Fox. Representing the National Regeneration Movement (MORENA), he is the current Go ...

, a longtime politician and public official in the state, as the

Juntos Haremos Historia Juntos Haremos Historia () was a Mexican political coalition encompassing the National Regeneration Movement (MORENA), Labor Party (Mexico), Labor Party (PT), and Social Encounter Party (PES), the latter of which was consequently absorbed into th ...

coalition candidates for Senate from Sonora. The ticket obtained 200,000 more votes than the PRI ticket, putting it in first place and securing seats for Téllez and Durazo in the Senate. In August 2018, Téllez announced she would file an injunction against several constitutional reforms approved in the Sonora state government that reduce the power of the state legislature. Opposition to these reforms, which Téllez described as a "dictatorial smackdown by Governor Claudia Pavlovich Arellano", has been particularly vociferous within Morena, as the party won 20 of the 21 district seats in the Sonoran state legislature in the 2018 midterm elections. On December 16,

2019 This was the year in which the first known human case of COVID-19 was documented, preceding COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemic which was declared by the World Health Organization the following year. Up to that point, 2019 had been described as ...

, the ''Comisión de Justicia'' (Justice Commission) of

demanded the expulsion of Lilly Téllez from her position as a member of the party's

Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

caucus, primarily due to her opposition to the legalization of

abortion Abortion is the early termination of a pregnancy by removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus. Abortions that occur without intervention are known as miscarriages or "spontaneous abortions", and occur in roughly 30–40% of all pregnan ...

. On 3 June 2020, Téllez joined the National Action Party. Téllez García is seeking re-election as one of Sonora's senators in the 2024 Senate election, occupying the second place on the ''

Fuerza y Corazón por México Fuerza y Corazón por México (), previously called the Broad Front for Mexico (), was a big tent political coalition formed by three Mexican political parties: the conservative National Action Party (PAN), the catch-all Institutional Revolutio ...

'' coalition's two-name formula.

Personal life

Téllez was married in 2003 to businessman Guillermo Calderón Villalobos in Mexico City, who she then divorced.

References

TV Azteca's legal accusation against Francisco Gil Díaz.
(

PDF Portable document format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe Inc., Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, computer hardware, ...

format, in

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

) {{DEFAULTSORT:Tellez, Lilly Politicians from Hermosillo 1967 births Living people Mexican women journalists Morena (political party) politicians Members of the Senate of the Republic (Mexico) for Sonora People from Ensenada, Baja California Mexican anti-abortion activists Senators of the LXIV and LXV Legislatures of Mexico Women members of the Senate of the Republic (Mexico)