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Roberto Arango

Roberto Arango-Vinent is a member of the Senate of Puerto Rico since January 10, 2005.

Personal life
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Personal life

Senator Roberto Arango is married to the former Ana Margarita Barba and the father of one daughter. He is a 1986 graduate of Louisiana State University (LSU). Prior to throwing his hat in the ring for the 2003 New Progressive Party primaries for San Juan district senator, he was a food importer and wholesaler and made a point in his first campaign that he came from the private sector and was not a career politician.

Public life

In his first political race, he was the top vote-getter in the NPP primaries for San Juan district senator. In the general election on November 4, 2004 he was also the top vote-getter. He and running mate Carlos Díaz defeated incumbent Popular Democratic Party senators Margarita Ostolaza and José Ortiz Dalliot.

Upon taking office, then Senate President Kenneth McClintock appointed him chairman of the Senate Commerce, Tourism and Infrastructure Committee, a post he held until the May 2005 committee chairmanship reorganization triggered by former Governor Pedro Rosselló's unsuccessful attempt to topple and replace McClintock.

He serves as a member of the Executive Committee of the Council of State Governments' Eastern Regional Conference (CSG/ERC). An alumnus of CSG/ERC's Eastern Leadership Academy, he was elected president of the class of 2006. He was a member of CSG's Toll Fellows Program class of 2007.

Active in the Republican Party, he is the San Juan congressional district GOP committee chair and vice-chaired the Bush/Cheney Puerto Rico campaign in 2004.

Within the New Progressive Party (NPP) he was chair of its statehood ideological institute until he was removed for supporting Resident Commissioner Luis Fortuño's gubernatorial bid against NPP President Pedro Rosselló.

Arango was handily renominated for a second term in the 2008 NPP primary and for reelection in that year's general election. His fellow senators-elect chose him as the Senate Majority Leader for the 2009?2012 term, the top Senate leadership position after the Senate Presidency, for which Sen. Thomas Rivera Schatz was selected. As Majority Leader, he is charged with the task of pursuing the approval of the NPP's programmatic legislation in the legislative body.

He has adopted as one of his pet issues the opposition to the firing in the air of firearms during the holiday season, especially New Year's Eve, a practice that maims and kills innocent victims. On December 21, 2008, he held a joint press conference on the issue with Guayama, Puerto Rico Mayor-elect Glorimari Jaime and several pop artists, including Miguelito.^[1]