Candidates
John Cornyn was born in Houston and was raised in San Antonio. He graduated from Trinity University and St. Mary’s School of Law, both in San Antonio.
In 1977, he joined the San Antonio law firm of Groce, Locke, & Hebdon and specialized in defending doctors and lawyers in malpractice lawsuits. He was first elected to office in 1984 as a district court judge in Bexar County. After serving for six years, he was elected to the Texas Supreme Court in 1990, where he served for seven years. He was then elected Texas Attorney General, and served in that capacity from 1999-2002.
Cornyn was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2002. Since that time, he has served on the Armed Services, Judiciary and Budget committees and as vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Ethics, as well as the Judiciary Committee’s Immigration, Refugees and Border Security subcommittee and the Armed Services Committee’s Airland subcommittee. He was also selected by his colleagues in December 2006 to be Vice Chairman of the Senate Republican Conference.
In addition to his legislative committees, Cornyn is the chairman of the Senate India Caucus, chairman of the Senate RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) Caucus, Vice Chairman of the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus, and Vice Chairman of the Senate Republican Conference Task Force on Hispanic Affairs. He is also a member of the Senate Republican High Tech Task Force, the Congressional Oversight Group on Trade and the President’s Export Council. In addition to his degrees from Trinity and St. Mary’s, Cornyn also earned a Masters of Law from the University of Virginia Law School in 1995. He was named the St. Mary’s Distinguished Law School Graduate in 1994 and a Trinity University Distinguished Alumnus in 2001.
While in the Senate, John Cornyn received the 2005 Border Texan of the Year Award; the National Child Support Enforcement Association’s Children’s Champion Award; the American Farm Bureau Federation’s Friend of Farm Bureau Award; the Texas Association of Business’s (TAB) Fighter for Free Enterprise Award; the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) Guardian of Small Business Award; the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders (CONLAMIC) Latino Leadership Award; and the Texas Association of Mexican American Chambers of Commerce (TAMACC) International Leadership Legislative Award; among others.
Sen. Cornyn is married to Sandy, his wife of 27 years. They have two daughters.
Rick Noriega was raised in Houston, Texas. He graduated from Mt. Carmel High School in 1976 and attended Alvin Junior College on a Rusk athletic scholarship before completing his undergraduate education with the help of an ROTC scholarship at the University of Houston in 1984. After serving as commander of the 143rd Infantry Detachment in the U.S. Army, he went on to earn a Master in Public Administration degree in 1990 at the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government, where he was an editor of the Harvard Journal of Hispanic Policy.
Upon his return to Houston, Noriega became project manager for Communities in Schools and taught for the Houston Independent School District and Houston Community College System before becoming a staffer in the Texas State Senate. He joined Houston Industries, Inc., (now CenterPoint Energy, Inc.) as part of the Governmental Affairs department in November 1993, and became a manager of economic development for CenterPoint Energy after winning the Democratic nomination for State Representative, District 145, in the spring of 1998.
During his first term, Noriega authored or sponsored legislation relating to economic development, education and law enforcement among other areas. He was re-elected to a second term in the Texas House in November 2000, where he continued to serve on the Human Services and Transportation Committees. Noriega said his most significant accomplishment of the 2001 session was passage of House Bill 1403, which made Texas the first state in the country to provide in-state tuition rates and financial assistance for certain immigrant children. To date, eight other states have passed or proposed similar eligibility programs, and the DREAM Act was proposed to accomplish the same purpose at the federal level.
Noriega also served as Lieutenant Colonel in the Texas Army National Guard, and was deployed for 14 months as deputy garrison commander of a training facility in Kabul, Afghanistan in 2004 and 2005. His wife, Melissa Meisgeier Noriega, made history when she was sworn in as his temporary replacement for the 79th Legislature on January 11, 2005, and she served in his stead on the Corrections and Defense Affairs and State and Federal Relations committees. Upon his return, Rick was named Incident Commander of Houston's Hurricane Katrina relief efforts for nearly 30,000 evacuees at the George R. Brown Convention Center.
Rick and his wife have two sons and live in Houston.
