1. Joe Garcia previously served as executive director of the Cuban American National Foundation and in the Department of Energy.
35 Facts About Joe Garcia
1. 2.
In 2021, Joe Garcia became a registered lobbyist on behalf of the government of Ethiopia.
3.
Joe Garcia's parents fled Cuba after the Cuban Revolution occurred and Fidel Castro's Communist regime took power.
4.
Joe Garcia graduated in 1982 from Belen Jesuit Preparatory School, where he participated in the Close Up Washington civic education program.
5.
Joe Garcia attended Miami-Dade Community College before earning his Bachelor of Arts degree in political science and public affairs from the University of Miami in 1987.
6.
Joe Garcia earned his JD from the University of Miami School of Law in 1991.
7.
Joe Garcia served on the Florida Public Service Commission as chairman.
8.
Joe Garcia was later appointed to the Federal Communications Commission Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service and was a member of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials.
9.
Joe Garcia served on the board of the Spanish American League Against Discrimination and on the board of directors of Regis House, a drug addiction treatment and prevention center for inner-city youth in Miami.
10.
Joe Garcia became a member of the board of directors of the Cuban American National Foundation, and a past president.
11.
Joe Garcia has served as director of the New Democrat Network Hispanic Strategy Center, and chairman of the Democratic Party of Miami-Dade County.
12.
In 2009, Joe Garcia joined the Obama administration in a Senate-confirmed position as director of the Office of Minority Economic Impact in the United States Department of Energy.
13.
Joe Garcia announced on February 7,2008, his candidacy for the US Congress in.
14.
In 2012, Joe Garcia announced he would seek a rematch against Rivera in what was now the 26th district.
15.
Joe Garcia was the first Cuban-American Democrat to represent Florida in Congress, and remains the only one as of 2024.
16.
Joe Garcia ran for re-election to the US House in 2014.
17.
Joe Garcia faced Republican nominee Carlos Curbelo in the general election on November 4,2014.
18.
Joe Garcia was a member of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's Frontline Program, designed to help protect vulnerable Democratic incumbents heading into the 2014 election.
19.
Joe Garcia was sworn into his first two-year term on January 3,2013.
20.
Joe Garcia joined other Cuban lawmakers in submitting a letter to the State Department calling for Cuba to remain a designated state-sponsor of terrorism.
21.
Joe Garcia endorses the political construct that the US continue to allow Cuban-Americans to travel to Cuba to visit family, and that other Americans to go there for "purposeful travel", such as educational tours and religious missions.
22.
Joe Garcia supported the application of a Havana-based research institute to get a license from the US Treasury Department to test and market a diabetes treatment in the United States.
23.
Joe Garcia was one of 172 congresspeople who signed a memorandum sent to the Supreme Court to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act.
24.
Joe Garcia voted against the Amash Amendment, which would have prohibited the collection of records by the National Security Agency under the Patriot Act.
25.
Joe Garcia voted for the Farm Bill, a $1 trillion bill expanding crop insurance for farmers by $7 billion over the next decade and creating new subsidies for rice and peanut growers, but which made cuts to the food stamp program by an average of $90 per month for 1.7 million people in 15 states.
26.
Joe Garcia opposes offshore drilling, and opposes any offshore energy production, hoping to develop energy industries on shore.
27.
Joe Garcia is the chief sponsor in the House of Representatives of a comprehensive immigration reform plan which is similar to legislation that has passed the United States Senate.
28.
In January 2014, Joe Garcia proposed legislation that would halt flood insurance rate hikes for five years.
29.
Vendors employed in the Arrojo campaign told the Miami Herald that Joe Garcia had funded Arrojo's campaign and that they were cooperating with federal authorities in the investigation.
30.
Joe Garcia was sentenced to two years probation with eight months of home confinement and a $1,000 fine.
31.
The investigation would conclude that Congressman Joe Garcia's staff had been behind the hundreds of fraudulent absentee-ballot requests.
32.
Jefferey Joe Garcia pled guilty, and was sentenced to 90 days in jail for orchestrating the fraudulent ballot scheme.
33.
In 2021, Joe Garcia became a lobbyist on behalf of the government of Ethiopia as part of Mercury Public Affairs, a lobbying firm owned by Omnicom Group.
34.
Joe Garcia was hired to lobby through the American Ethiopian Public Affairs Committee, which has been endorsed by Ethiopian ambassador Fitsum Arega.
35.
Ahmed has been accused of abetting genocide in the Tigray region, and Joe Garcia has reportedly lobbied alongside former Senator David Vitter on congressional legislation in response to the War in Tigray.