Rosie Gonzalez endorsed by Victory Fund
QSanAntonio.com, July 23, 2010

The Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund this week endorsed the candidacy of Rosa M. (Rosie) Gonzalez for 436th District Court Judge. The Victory Fund trains and endorses "qualified, committed openly LGBT candidates who can win at the ballot box."

In the November election, Gonzales will face off against incumbent Lisa K. Jarret, a Republican who was appointed to the newly created judgeship by the Governor Rick Perry.

Gonzalez, who has a family law practice in San Antonio, is a graduate of the Women’s Campaign School at Yale University and now sits on its Board of Directors as its legal counsel. Additionally, she has a long established history of coordinating campaigns and consulting for women candidates.

Every candidate endorsed by the Victory Fund also gets help with fundraising via a web page on their site that permits supporters from around the country to make campaign contributions. (Click here to view.)

Last year, Gonzalez was a participant in the Victory Fund’s Leadership Institute Candidate Campaign Training. (See related story below.)

Gonzalez is a native of Brownsville, Texas, but has lived in San Antonio the better part of the last 25 years. She attended St. Mary's University where she earned her Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and later her law degree.

Prior to becoming a lawyer, she worked in the many areas of social work: child abuse investigator, community emergency assistance program coordinator, gang counselor, program director for an adolescent substance abuse program, juvenile probation officer and other similar positions.

This week Gonzalez also learned that in November she will be featured in an article about "viable candidates" in the AARP magazine. Earlier this year, she got endorsements from the San Antonio AFL-CIO, the Bexar County Young Democrats and the Stonewall Democrats of San Antonio.

Gonzalez sat down for an interview with QSanAntonio last week where she discussed the issues vital to her campaign.

The judgeship you are running for is a new position. Can you describe the circumstances that brought about its creation?

The court was created under HB 4833. Specifically, the AUTHOR'S / SPONSOR'S STATEMENT OF INTENT delineates the following: Each session, the legislature routinely approves the creation of new district courts for counties that exhibit substantial judicial need. Several factors are analyzed in the evaluation process, including increased caseloads, case backlogs, substantial population growth, and county support. "Measuring Current Judicial Workload in Texas", a research report issued by the Office of Court Administration in 2008, also provided valuable data regarding judicial need and was used in the analysis. H.B. 4833 established new district courts in certain counties to support a more efficient and effective statewide judiciary. Furthermore, SECTION 3. (a) Provided that effective October 1, 2009, Subchapter C, Chapter 24, Government Code, was amended by adding Section 24.580, as follows: Sec. 24.580. 436TH JUDICIAL DISTRICT (BEXAR COUNTY).|

(a) Provides that the 436th Judicial District is composed of Bexar County.

(b) Requires the 436th District Court to give preference to juvenile matters.

(c) Provides that the 436th Judicial District is created on October 1, 2009.

What are the primary issues that this judge would deal with?

Juvenile cases which are significantly different from adult criminal cases. The hearings in this juvenile court are actually a civil proceeding whereas an adult criminal defendant is charged in a criminal proceeding. Juvenile cases are controlled by a hybrid of civil and criminal laws. While the actual charges against a juvenile are brought by means of a civil lawsuit, the juvenile offender is given virtually the same constitutional rights, privileges and protections that an adult criminal defendant possesses.

What in your background and work experience qualifies you for the position?

Child Protective Services Caseworker, Community Emergency Assistance Program Coordinator, Gang Counseling Facilitator, Adolescent Substance Abuse Program Casemanager and Program Director, Intensive Supervision Probation/Juvenile Probation Officer. These are all positions I had the opportunity to work diligently at, and it is the experiences within those capacities that have made me sensitive to the needs of our youth, their families, and our community as a whole.

My background in this type of social work instilled in me the ability to look beyond what the child and their family present on the surface, the end results of their very personal plights, and helped me to look toward positive interventions and solutions for them. This position requires someone to fill it that is a problem-solver, one who looks beyond the child and draws on the community of family, school, and other qualified professionals to provide a plan that will diminish recidivism, hold offenders accountable, and provide them with the needed skills and support that will make them into productive adult members of our community. That person is me!

What would do differently from your opponent, who is the currently appointed incumbent?

Explore opportunities to:

- Get CASA Volunteers involved (as they are in Travis County)

- Use effective supervision techonology (GPS) to track probationers in need of such supervision

- Expand the docket to include children involved in both Juvenile Court system and Child Protective Services

- Start a 60 minutes Mentor program, in which actual local success stories are presented to Juvenile population in an interactive manner

- Engage the local business community to train and employ our youth

- Engage the local arts community to develop Community Service programs that can serve not only the Juvenile population and their parents simultaneously

- Provide a more flexible docket schedule to allow higher participation by working parents

- Show my community that I truly have a passion to serve our youth because I believe we can provide them a bright promising future when we judge them on their redeemable qualities, and judge them less on their mistakes and more how they handle their mistakes.

Do you have any words for San Antonio voters regarding the November election?

We are living at a time when we are standing at a crossroad. All across this great nation of ours we are starting to witness the fabric that has made this country so strong, the fabric of our diversity, start to fray. WE must commit to work to strengthen our communities and not become a part of the problem. You can only do that BY VOTING. Vote because your brother or sister has fought hard here and abroad to insure our way of life and government. Vote because your grandparents or great grandparents were not allowed to but fought hard to make sure their children and now YOU can vote. Vote because you want your voice heard and counted. Vote because you want our community to be a better place to live in for you and your loved ones--a better place to live in than when you entered it. VOTE to send a message out that you believe in self-determination for individuals and the masses, and do not believe that our lives should be dictated by a few elite. VOTE so you can proudly declare that you have made a difference.

For more information about Rosie Gonzalez go to her web site: RosieGonzalezForJudge.com.

Trainees and instructors at the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund's Leadership Institute Candidate Campaign Training held recently in Denver. San Antonio attorney Rosie Gonzalez (front row center wearing white shirt and black tie) was among the 24 trainees.

Local attorney completes Victory Fund training
QSanAntonio.com, October 3, 2009

Rosie Gonzalez, a local activist and attorney, has just returned from Denver where she participated in the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund’s Leadership Institute Candidate Campaign Training. The training took place from September 24 through 27 at the Gill Foundation Building and the Sheraton Denver Downtown Hotel.

The Victory Fund classes that Gonzalez took provide comprehensive, nonpartisan training to present and future openly GLBT candidates, campaign staff and community leaders. Training attendees learn about skills and strategy by engaging in tough, realistic campaign situations.

Gonzalez, who has a family law practice, is a graduate of the Women’s Campaign School at Yale University and now sits on its Board of Directors as the board’s Legal Counsel. Additionally, she has a long established history of coordinating campaigns and consulting with local candidates. (See related stories below.)

"Most recently, my consulting has been focused on women candidates. I provide free consulting because I am committed to getting women elected to public office," she told QSanAntonio.

Of the 28 present at the Leadership Institute in Denver, four were trainers and facilitators: Chuck Wolfe, Joe Fuld, Heather Colburn and Kelton Morgan (a San Antonio political consultant who is President of Campaign Services Group, Inc.).

The remaining 24 were trainees that represented communities from Connecticut, Illinois, Colorado, Michigan, D.C., Georgia, Arizona, Ohio, California, Louisiana, Florida, New York and Texas. Six of the 24 were women, and seven of the 24 were Hispanic. Two participants were transgender.

The goal of the 3-day training seminar is to educate and train individuals in running for office or interested in insuring that members of GLBT communities are elected to public office across the country. The Leadership Institute has trained hundreds of openly GLBT candidates and campaign workers how to build winning campaigns.

QSanAntonio asked Gonzalez if she was planning to run for public office. She would not go on the record on that topic other than to say that there was an office she was interested in seeking but did not offer any specifics.

What Gonzalez did say was that she sees her participation in the Victory Fund training as an extension of her work and activism. "As a member of the GLBT community, I live my life and practice my profession. My goal is not to be recognized as ‘out,’ because my being ‘out’ is part of many facets of me, but to live to see the day when we as members of the GLBT community are indistinguishable from the mainstream population."

The Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund Leadership Institute’s seminar is offered across the country at different times during the year. Please visit the Victory Fund web site www.victoryfund.org for more information regarding future training opportunities.

Aida Rojas, Diane Arevalo, Dinorah Diaz, Rosie Gonzalez, and Olga Kauffman, all from San Antonio, at the the Women's Campaign School at Yale University Law School.

San Antonio women attend Yale Campaign School
QSanAntonio.com, July 23, 2009

On July 14, 2009, 68 women from across the country and around the world converged at the Women's Campaign School at Yale University's Law School in New Haven, Connecticut. Women came from as far as the Sudan, Bosnia, Mexico, Afghanistan, and Slovakia. The group also included women from San Antonio.

The Women's Campaign School is a nonpartisan, non-advocacy, political campaign training program. Their mission is "to provide the very best training in the world for women who want to run for office or who want to move up to higher elective office. We train women to run political campaigns, and to advance their careers in public life in political environments. We train women leaders who are capable of building relationships regardless of political point of view."

San Antonio was fortunate to be well represented by four phenomenal women as students and another amazing woman who sits on the school's board of directors.

Aida Rojas and Dinorah Diaz are two well-established and respected attorneys who are solo practitioners with practices that encompass civil litigation, family law, criminal defense, and an array of other practices of law. Both Rojas and Diaz are candidates for judge of local district courts.

Diane Arevalo comes from a long line of community activists and politicos with a history of service to San Antonio. Diane is currently employed at Ticketmaster and assists in planning local political campaigns and fundraisers. Olga Kauffman is a San Antonio fundraising consultant with a demonstrated commitment to the women and children of our great city.

The four San Antonio women who attended and participated in the Women's Campaign School were recruited by and encouraged to apply to the program by Rosie Gonzalez, an alumnus of the campaign school (Class of 2007) who now sits on the Board of Directors as their legal counsel.

Gonzalez is a local attorney with a Family Law practice that focuses on child abuse litigation, and consults with local women candidates about how to run successful political campaigns for public office. (See related story below.)

The women participated in an exhausting and grueling five-day curriculum that began each day at 8:15 a.m. and ended about 8:00 p.m. The participants were exposed to an array of tremendous women speakers who schooled them on a number of subjects and skills necessary to run a successful campaign for public office.

Topics discussed included how to write campaign speeches, developing image, how to make the decision to run, video presence consulting, polling, developing image and messaging, communicating via paid media, maneuvering through social media sites, web site development, GOTV strategies, fundraising, campaign budgeting and more.

"Rest assured that our ladies left Yale feeling like they are poised to run for city council, judge, state rep., Governor, Congress even President of the United States!" says Gonzalez.

The Women's Campaign School takes place every year in July and is always seeking qualified, motivated and ambitious women to carry the torch to political victories. Interested women are encouraged to apply for consideration. Visit www.wcsyale.org for more information. Applications are taken starting in February each year.

For a personal presentation about the program and what it has to offer, contact Rosie Gonzalez at 210-224-1283.

Community leader chosen for Women’s Campaign School at Yale
QSanAntonio.com, May 25, 2007

San Antonio attorney and Equality Texas board member, Rosie Gonzalez, has been chosen to participate in the Women’s Campaign School at Yale University this summer. Gonzalez will take part in a training program that brings women together from around the United States and other parts of the world to learn the skills and strategies to run successful political campaigns. For five days the participants are put through an intensive political immersion program designed to teach political skills, strategic assessment, and improvisation.

"I understand I will be learning from accomplished women in politics from across the country," Gonzalez told QSanAntonio. "My plan is to represent well, as a woman, as a Latina, as ‘familia’, and simply as ‘gente’ and to confirm that to Yale University that their selection is truly a perfect example of new leadership already on the horizon for the 21st century."

Gonzalez says that to her understanding the selection process for WCS begins by being nominated by someone who has taken the training previously. "In my case, the Hon. Karen Crouch who presides over Bexar County Court at Law No. 8 nominated me," she explains. "The selection committee then requires nominees to submit an application outlining community activities and political involvement. The applications are then weighed against each other and the committee selects the final list of participants for the program."

Gonzalez is a native of Brownsville, Texas who now resides in San Antonio. She earned her B.A. in Political Science from St. Mary’s University in San Antonio in 1987 and her J.D. from St. Mary’s University School of Law in 2001. As an attorney, Gonzalez has over 11 years of experience in the practice of family law and social services with two of those years in private practice.

Gonzalez’ credentials as a community leader are impressive. She is the President of the Mexican American Bar Association of Texas. She sits on the Jury Service and Racial Diversity in the Profession Committees of the State Bar of Texas, and is the Chair-Elect of the Hispanic Issues Section of the State Bar of Texas. She also sits on the State Board of Equality Texas, and holds a number of board positions on local non-profit boards of directors in San Antonio, Texas.

I still can't believe I was selected," Gonzalez told QSanAntonio. "I plan to return and share everything I learn with anyone who is interested and will listen in hopes that the benefits personally gained at the WCS impacts our community exponentially."