Robert Francis "Beto" O'Rourke (; born September 26, 1972) is an American politician who represented Texas's 16th congressional district in the United...
Robert Francis "Beto" O'Rourke (; born September 26, 1972) is an American politician who represented Texas's 16th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from 2013 to 2019. O'Rourke is most notable for his 2018 campaign for United States Senate, in which he lost to Republican incumbent Ted Cruz. He sought the 2020 Democratic nomination for President of the United States.
O'Rourke was born into a local political family in El Paso, Texas, and is a graduate of Woodberry Forest School and Columbia University. While studying at Columbia, O'Rourke began a brief music career as bass guitarist in the post-hardcore band Foss. After his college graduation, he returned to El Paso and began a business career. In 2005, he was elected to the El Paso City Council, serving until 2011. O'Rourke was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2012 after defeating eight-term incumbent Democrat Silvestre Reyes in the primary.
After being re-elected to the House in 2014 and 2016, O'Rourke declined to seek re-election in 2018. Instead, he sought the U.S. Senate seat held by Cruz, running a competitive campaign that drew national attention. O'Rourke set a record for most votes ever cast for a Democrat in Texas history. On March 14, 2019, O'Rourke announced his campaign for President of the United States in the 2020 United States presidential election. He suspended his campaign on November 1, 2019, before the primaries began.
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Joe Arpaio
Joseph Michael Arpaio (; born June 14, 1932) is an American former law enforcement officer and politician. He served as the 36th Sheriff of Maricopa C...
Joseph Michael Arpaio (; born June 14, 1932) is an American former law enforcement officer and politician. He served as the 36th Sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona for 24 years, from 1993 to 2017, losing reelection to Democrat Paul Penzone in 2016.
Starting in 2005, Arpaio took an outspoken stance against illegal immigration, styling himself as "America's Toughest Sheriff". In 2010, he became a flashpoint for opposition to Arizona's SB1070 anti-illegal immigrant law, which was largely struck down by the Supreme Court of the United States. Arpaio is also known for investigating former U.S. President Barack Obama's birth certificate, and, as of 2018, he continued to claim without evidence that it was forged.Arpaio has been accused of numerous types of police misconduct, including abuse of power, misuse of funds, failure to investigate sex crimes, criminal negligence, abuse of suspects in custody, improper clearance of cases, unlawful enforcement of immigration laws, and election law violations. A Federal court monitor was appointed to oversee his office's operations because of complaints of racial profiling. The U.S. Department of Justice concluded that Arpaio oversaw the worst pattern of racial profiling in U.S. history, and subsequently filed suit against him for unlawful discriminatory police conduct. Arpaio and the MCSO were named as defendants in dozens of civil lawsuits brought by citizens arrested by Arpaio and his deputies alleging wrongful arrest, wrongful death, entrapment and other claims, costing taxpayers in Maricopa County over $140 million in litigation against Arpaio during his tenure as sheriff.Over the course of his career, Arpaio was the subject of several federal civil rights lawsuits. In one case, he was a defendant in a decade-long suit in which a federal court issued an injunction barring him from conducting further "immigration round-ups". A federal court subsequently found that after the order was issued, Arpaio's office continued to detain "persons for further investigation without reasonable suspicion that a crime has been or is being committed." In July 2017, he was convicted of criminal contempt of court, a crime for which he was pardoned by President Donald Trump on August 25, 2017. In a separate racial-profiling case which concluded in 2013, Arpaio and his subordinates were found to have unfairly targeted Hispanics in conducting traffic stops.Although Arpaio sought another term as Maricopa County Sheriff in 2016, the contempt of court conviction eroded much of his remaining political support, and he was defeated in the election by Paul Penzone, a Democrat who reversed many of Arpaio's policies after taking office. Arpaio was an unsuccessful candidate in Arizona's Republican primary election for U.S. Senate in 2018. On August 25, 2019, Arpaio issued a statement saying that he would run for sheriff of Maricopa County in 2020. He lost the August 2020 primary election.
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