Aníbal Acevedo Vilá

Aníbal Acevedo Vilá ( born May 13, 1962 in Hato Rey, Puerto Rico ) is a Puerto Rican politician and former governor of Puerto Rico. Acevedo held many political offices in Puerto Rico, including as a deputy in the Puerto Rican House of Representatives (1993-2001) and Resident Commissioner in the House of Representatives of the United States (2001-2005 ). Acevedo won the election to the office of governor in November 2004, when he defeated challenger Pedro Rosselló. His predecessor, Sila María Calderón was.

The election was very close, as only 3,566 votes allowed the victory of Acevedo. Acevedo is the first elected governor, who was born after the adoption of the Constitution of Puerto Rico.

Life

Childhood and education

Acevedo was born in Hato Rey, Puerto Rico, a district of San Juan. He attended the Colegio San Jose High School in San Juan, where he graduated in 1979. In 1982, he received a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of Puerto Rico at Rio Piedras. Acevedo then completed a law degree in 1985 and earned his Juris Doctor with honors, magna cum laude. In 1987, he earned a Masters degree in Constitutional Law at Harvard University. He then worked for Levin Hicks Campbell, the presiding judge of the Court of Appeals in Boston.

Political career

From 1989 he worked as a legal advisor to the Governor Rafael Hernández Colón. He was elected as an MP in the House of Representatives of Puerto Rico in 1992. After re- election in 1996 In 1997 he was speaker of the minority faction in parliament and in the same year also the Chairman of the Partido Popular Democrático. In 1998, he campaigned against a tabled by Don Young in the U.S. House of Representatives proposal to redefine the political status of Puerto Rico, in which, among other things, the admission of Puerto Rico as a state in the United States was up for discussion. The Act failed in the Senate of the United States. The state parliament he was a member until 2001. A first attempt to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives for Puerto Rico as a delegate ( Resident Commissioner ), failed in 1999, the next was successful in 2000. He represented Puerto Rico from January 2001 to January 2005 in Washington.

As Governor Sila Calderón 2003, the former announced that they will not again a candidate for a second term, Acevedo is recognized as a candidate of the Partido Popular Democrático through against the intra-party competitors José Hernández Mayoral. In November 2004 he won the gubernatorial election in Puerto Rico Pedro Rosselló against which has been the governor of Puerto Rico from 1993 to 2001. When re-election attempt in 2008, he failed to Luis Fortuño of the Partido Nuevo Progresista.