Rubio's Background
Rubio is the paternal grandson of the late Samuel and Guadalupe Rubio. His mother is Josephina Rubio of Laredo. His father, Jose, Sr., had a distinguished record in the United States Army in the post-World War II occupation of Japan, was later the director of the Webb County Detention Center for several years, a racehorse owner, and a volunteer Little League coach.
Rubio graduated in 1973 from J. W. Nixon High School in Laredo and is a member of the honored "Nixon Legends", established in 1993. A Roman Catholic, he is a graduate of the University of Houston Law Center.
After a failure of federal support over the costs involved, in 1998, Rubio announced that he would no longer prosecute federal drug cases within Webb and Zapata counties.
Rubio originally became DA when he was nominated in the primary in 1988 to succeed a distant relative, Julio A. Garcia, who declined to seek a third term. Rubio then defeated a rare challenge from an Independent, Carlos Barrera, to secure the first of his five terms as DA. Barrera (born 1956), a former Webb County assistant DA under Garcia, thereafter relocated to Austin, where he opened a private law practice. On March 4, 2008, he was nominated in the Democratic primary in Travis County to fill a new judgeship, County Court-at-Law No. 8, which will oversee criminal misdemeanor cases. Barrera was then unopposed in the November 4 general election.
Two of Rubio's prosecutors, Oscar Hale, Jr. and Joe Lopez, Jr., became district judges. Another high-level DA employee, Ricardo "Rick" Flores, was elected Webb County sheriff in 2004, after having been dismissed from the DA's office from his position as counselor and criminal investigator in the Domestic Violence Unit. Flores was an unsuccessful candidate for renomination in the April 8 Texas Democratic runoff primary. He lost in a controversial recount to Martin Cuellar, brother of U.S. Representative Henry Cuellar.In 2012, Flores ran as an Independent for sheriff but fared poorly in an attempt to unseat Cuellar.
Prior to his DA service, Rubio was briefly a member of the Laredo Independent School District board.
Read more about this topic: Joe Rubio, Jr.
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