Hispanic Heritage

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen

Born 1952
U.S. Representative

Cuban-American politician Ileana Ros-Lehtinen has established herself as a role model for Hispanics and a firm defender of democracy. The first Cuban-born woman to hold a seat in the Florida legislature, she served as a Republican representative and then senator there before capturing a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1989. This made her the first Cuban American, not to mention the first Hispanic female, to make it to the U.S. Congress. Several terms later, she remains a visible opponent of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and a champion of Hispanic causes and tax reform.

Ros-Lehtinen (pronounced "ross-LAY-ti-nin") , known as Lily to friends and family, was born Ileana Ros on July 15, 1952, in Cuba's capital city of Havana. She is the daughter of Enrique Emilio Ros, a certified public accountant, and Amanda Adato Ros. When she was seven years old, she and her family fled their country after Fidel Castro's communist revolution established his dictatorship. In 1961, an invasion at Cuba's Bay of Pigs failed to topple Castro, and Ros-Lehtinen's father realized that returning home was becoming less likely. He thus decided to raise his children as Americans and taught them to be patriotic about their new country.

In 1972, Ros-Lehtinen earned an associate of arts degree from Miami-Dade County Community College, then obtained a bachelor of arts degree from Florida International University in Miami in 1975. In 1986, she finished a master of science degree in educational leadership and later took doctoral studies courses as well. Meanwhile, Ros-Lehtinen began a career in education, then founded the Eastern Academy, a private elementary school in southern Florida.

Encouraged by her father to enter politics, Ros-Lehtinen ran for a seat in the Florida legislature and was elected in 1982. She served there until 1986, then landed a seat in the state senate, holding that post until 1989. In the state legislature, Ros-Lehtinen started out as a global- thinking politician, more concerned with greater issues than with her specific constituent base, but as time went on, she was faulted for taking the opposite approach, and becoming too narrowly attached to the needs of her district. One of her main achievements in state politics was the creation of the Florida Pre-Paid College Tuition Program.

When Florida political powerhouse Claude Pepper died in May of 1989, Ros-Lehtinen resigned from the state senate to run in a special election to fill the longtime representative's seat from the eighteenth district. Other candidates in the primary vote were four Republicans, including Carlos Perez, and seven Democrats, including Rosario Kennedy and Jo Ann Pepper, the late congressman's niece. Going into the August 3 primary, Laura Parker in the Washington Post wrote, "Ros-Lehtinen is expected to easily win Tuesday's four-way Republican primary." In addition, Kennedy was seen as the Democratic front-runner, which would have put two Hispanic females on the ballot.

However, it turned out that Gerald Richman emerged as the Democratic candidate, and a divisive battle ensued. Lee Atwater, chair of the Republican party, in June noted that his main goal was to see a Cuban American take Pepper's former seat, since Hispanics constituted close to half of the district. Richman, a Jewish attorney and former president of the Florida Bar Association, replied by stating, "This is an American seat," according to a Time article. Many voters were thus offended at Atwater's indication that Hispanics were not true Americans. The duration of the race was marred by racial tensions and accusations of bigotry on both sides. John Ellis "Jeb" Bush, who later won election as Florida's governor, managed Ros-Lehtinen's campaign, and his father, President George Bush, that August made a stop in Miami to personally endorse her.

As it turned out, Ros-Lehtinen won the seat with 53 percent of the vote, causing Hispanics to rejoice. As Jeffrey Schmalz reported in the New York Times, her victory "is being viewed by many here as a turning point in the ethnic balance of power in the Miami area." It was also a key election for Republicans, since the seat had been held by a Democrat for 26 years, although the local party officials complained that the National Republican Congressional Committee in Washington, D.C. was exercising too much control over the race, from advertising to hiring staff.

The vote was split mainly among racial lines, with 88 percent of non-Hispanic whites and 96 percent of blacks voting for Richman. But as Schmalz noted, the black population of the area, small to begin with, accounted for only 12 percent of the ballots cast, so their numbers were negligible in deciding the outcome. Ros-Lehtinen's election was also a victory for opponents of abortion: a Roman Catholic, she made it clear that she was only in favor of abortion if a woman's life was in danger.

When elections came around again in 1990, Ros-Lehtinen won 60 percent of the vote and was later reelected several times. During her tenure, she has spoken out vehemently against Castro's rule. This was exemplified by a column she wrote for the Christian Science Monitor in which she condemned Cuba's hosting of the 1991 Pan American Games, a series of contests similar to the Olympics in that they promote international goodwill through free and fair competition. "Why Havana, capital of the only communist country in the Western Hemisphere, was selected to host these games is a mystery," she concluded.

In addition to her staunch anti-communist sentiment and her anti-abortion stance Ros- Lehtinen is conservative on many other issues, including advocating the death penalty for those convicted of organizing drug rings, and favoring a constitutional amendment to ban flag burning. However, she has been fighting for federal funds to clean up the Miami River, and sponsored an act that would give tax credits to employers who offer child care. In other tax-related matters, she helped propose various acts that would allow parents to save for their children's college tuition by deferring taxes, and supported an act that would phase out inheritance taxes. In addition, she is an original cosponsor of the Marriage Tax Elimination Act of 1999 that aimed to get rid of the "penalty" caused when two people marry and are then pushed into a higher tax bracket.

Ros-Lehtinen also continues to be outspoken in her defense of democracy and her opposition to Castro, and has criticized what she sees as President Bill Clinton's softening in Cuban relations. She also remains a supporter of immigration and bilingual education. A member of the international relations committee, Ros-Lehtinen also chairs that body's subcommittee on international economic policy and trade, and is vice-chair of the subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere. In that capacity, she voted against the North American Free Trade Agreement. Ros- Lehtinen also serves on the Government Reform Committee.

While involved in state politics, Ros-Lehtinen met Dexter Lehtinen, who was also serving in the state legislature. They later married and have two daughters, Amanda and Patricia, and Ros-Lehtinen also became the stepmother to his two children, Katherine and Douglas. Her husband, formerly a U.S. attorney for the southern district of Florida, later entered private practice. They live in Miami.

FURTHER READING

Books
Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2nd edition, Gale, 1998.

Periodicals
National Review, November 24, 1989.
New York Times, August 31, 1989.

Online
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen Web site, http://www.house.gov/ros-lehtinen.

Source: Newsmakers 2000, Gale, 2000; Biography Resource Center, Gale, 2000.